Case 02: The Harpy Who Couldn't Fly

CASE 02:
The Harpy Who Couldn’t Fly

 

“It seems that Illy has agreed to meet with you,” the village elder said.

It had been around half a month since Glenn had come to the harpy village.

Kay’s sprain had gotten much better, and she had already been discharged from Glenn’s clinic. It didn’t change the fact that she needed to stay in bed, but now she was helping out with some simple chores in the house that Tisalia was borrowing.

Lorna was still the only one who accompanied Tisalia when she went out, but at this rate, it was quite likely that Kay would soon be able to accompany her as well. Glenn thought it was perfect timing for her completed recovery to coincide with their descent from the mountain.

However, there was a problem with his plan.

The biggest reason for his visit to the village—examining the harpy girl, Illy—had yet to be dealt with. Glenn couldn’t leave the village until he had gotten a chance to give her an examination.

Accordingly, he had continued to run his clinic in the village until she was ready for his examination, but—

“Not long ago, she told me she wouldn’t mind seeing you.”

“Is that true?”

The elder gave a deep nod.

Glenn had been summoned to the old harpy’s home. It was a wooden structure like the rest but had a splendid style that was appropriate for a village elder’s dwelling. When he heard the summons was regarding Illy, Glenn had told Sapphee, and they had rushed over to see the elder. However—

“But only under certain conditions.”

“…Conditions?”

The village elder’s keen eyes glanced to Glenn’s side.

It seemed that Glenn wasn’t the only one who he had called on. Next to him, looking as though a question mark were rising above her head, was Tisalia.

“That’s right,” the elder said. “Per her stipulations, she wants to have the Scythia’s daughter accompany you.”

“What, me…?” The color of confusion became steadily more pronounced on Tisalia’s face.

She had been in continuous negotiations with the harpy village elder in order to establish an air delivery branch of Scythia Transportation. From what Glenn had heard from Lorna, the business negotiations were going smoothly and documents had been exchanged between Tisalia and the village elder. As the daughter of the company, her business was, for the most part, over.

All that was left was to wait until Kay’s injury healed, after which they would descend the mountain with Glenn and the others.

Glenn was sure the centaur’s horsepower would be necessary, even though they were going down the mountain this time. Tisalia and her servants were also waiting until Glenn’s clinical work in the village was over, but when it came to her own duties, it seemed like there wasn’t anything more for her to do in the village, and Glenn had caught her sunbathing or enjoying the hot springs a few times as of late.

“Are you acquainted at all with Miss Illy, Miss Tisalia?” Glenn asked.

“Back when I thought you were in danger and rushed to save you, but…I didn’t really see the captured harpies…”

“Yeah, that’s right…” he said. Tisalia and her attendants, alongside the other fighters from the arena, had assisted in saving the harpies that had been captured by slave traders. However, she and the others had only driven off slavers that had suddenly attacked Glenn and had not gone directly into the bandits’ hideout. Glenn hadn’t thought that Illy had even had a chance to learn who Tisalia was. However—

“She most likely heard about her ladyship from the gossip of the other harpy children,” the elder said. “My lady is quite conspicuous, after all.”

“Does it have something to do with her current disorder?” Glenn asked.

“I don’t believe it does…”

So, Illy said she wanted to meet with Tisalia. Glenn agreed with the elder that her request had nothing to do with the ailment that was causing her wing feathers to fall out. Thus, he wondered if it were just because she wanted to meet a centaur, a rare sight to see in the village.

However, even if her condition were just to satisfy her curiosity, it meant Glenn could finally examine Illy, who had—until now—refused his treatment.

“You probably know this, but Illy is still a child,” the village elder said gloomily.

It was true. Of all the captured harpies, Illy had been the youngest.

“On top of that, she is worried about her feathers falling out and being unable to fly. Unlike an old bird like me, a young harpy would feel a great deal of anxiety about being unable to fly. If Glenn saw her, maybe she would be more at ease—that’s how we saw it, at least.”

“Naturally. I will make sure to examine her properly,” he answered without a second thought. It was one of the main reasons for Glenn’s visit, after all. “But, Miss Tisalia…”

“I will go as well, of course! No matter what shape it may take, if I can be of some use to the doctor, then I’d be more than happy to help.”

Tisalia was as dependable as ever.

“Anyway,” Glenn said, “I can’t examine her without meeting her first. It’s fine doing things this way—right, Sapphee?”

“Yes, Doctor. Depending on her condition, she might need medicine, so I will prepare some. However…” Sapphee cast a sidelong glance at Tisalia. Glenn wondered if she were going to say something that would start another quarrel, but with a tranquil look on her face, Sapphee said: “Ignoring whatever reason she had for calling Miss Tisalia, I must say…her coming along might end up actually causing trouble.”

“Hold on a second, Miss Sapphee. What does that mean?” Tisalia asked.

“I’m not being sarcastic or trying to suggest anything. The village elder just informed us that Miss Illy is a child, but she is fourteen years old… She’s going through puberty. What I meant to say is that the heart of a tender-aged young girl isn’t something that can be so easily understood.”

A silence fell over everyone at Sapphee’s words of caution.

Glenn realized Illy was around the same age as Lulala, Lindworm’s songstress, whose examination hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. Glenn took Sapphee’s remarks to heart, telling himself once again that he needed to pull himself together and deal with Illy like a gentlemen.

“In any event, please allow us to meet with her at once,” he said.

The village elder gave a deep nod at Glenn’s request.

 

***

 

Guided by the young harpies, Glenn arrived where Illy was staying. It was a house even further removed from the others. He had heard that it was a separate cottage used for medical treatment and recovery, so it was quite far from the village.

Illy was already unable to fly and couldn’t even go to her house built in the rock wall, but Glenn thought that being so separated from the village was probably especially discouraging for her.

“I suppose a harpy being unable to fly is like a centaur losing their ability to run,” Sapphee said.

“Or like a lamia losing the ability to slither,” Tisalia replied.

Sapphee and Tisalia both seemed to be hitting the mark, but Glenn thought they were still a little off with their lines of thinking.

Being able to fly was a gift granted only to bugs and birds—and to a number of monsters.

A bird could walk on earth and see things from a human’s perspective, but humans could never fly in the air themselves. Thinking about it like that, Glenn was sure that the anguish of a flightless harpy was beyond his comprehension.

That being said, the village elder seemed just fine being unable to fly, so it was possible he was over-thinking things, and yet…

“Excuse me.” Pushing open the plain wooden door, Glenn entered the cottage.

The inside of the room was dark. The cottage didn’t seem to be in an area that got a lot of sun, and there wasn’t any sort of illumination inside the room itself.

Glenn strained his eyes to search for Illy, however it wasn’t a silhouette that he glimpsed in the darkness.

It was white feathers.

“This is…”

White feathers were scattered all over the floor of the cottage. There were gray and black ones mixed in as well, though they didn’t stand out in the dark. Glenn picked up one of the feathers on reflex. It had fallen out, but not so long ago, as the tips were still standing straight up.

“A flight feather!” Long and sturdy. Looking at the magnificent feather, Glenn immediately came to a conclusion.

When a harpy opened up both its arms, these feathers were the ones that extended out the most from its body. Birds had the same types of feather, and they worked effectively to grant flight. If these feathers fell out, the harpy’s balance would be ruined, making it hard to fly. Birds bred in captivity had these flight feathers intentionally clipped to ensure they couldn’t escape—that was just how important these feathers were for flying.

Glenn thought that it would be troublesome to clean everything up, so he left the feathers where they were. He peered into the murk and caught sight of a shadow in the back of the room with a blanket over its head.

The shadow was peeking at Glenn through a gap in the blanket.

“Nice to see you again,” Glenn greeted the shadow. Behind him, Sapphee bowed, while Tisalia gave a wave, smiling brightly.

“Do you remember me? I’m Glenn Litbeit, the doctor who treated you before. Have you been doing well since then?”

“…Does it look like I’m doing well?”

“You raise a good point—your condition appears to be quite serious, doesn’t it?” Glenn sighed. When he considered how she’d been cooped up in this unclean, messy shack, he got the feeling that her environment was doing more to bring her down mentally than her illness was.

Illy poked her head out from underneath the blanket. Before, while treating her impacted oviduct, Glenn hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at her face, but looking at her now, he could see she had strong-willed features. He assumed the red irritation at the corner of her eyes had come from crying.

Sapphee had found a broom and seemed intent on cleaning up the shack. Tisalia, ever herself, opened up the windows and started ventilating the space. Something had been covering the panes, Glenn realized.

“Is that Miss Tisalia?” Illy asked.

“That’s right,” Glenn replied. “She’s come along just as you asked. You had something you needed from her?”

“Well, yeah…” Illy’s attitude was curt and blunt.

Glenn didn’t think they’d be welcome after she had refused to see him up until yesterday, but her gaze was fixed on Tisalia, who had begun to help Sapphee with her cleaning.

“Will you let me examine you?” Glenn asked.

“Sure… Hey, Doctor, what’s wrong with me?”

“That’s what I’m going to try and find out now. Is that okay with you?”

“Okay…”

Glenn was starting to think that this might be a more challenging case than he had expected.

Illy didn’t look Glenn in the eye even once. He felt unsure about how best to handle a young girl going through puberty. Even her replies to his questions were curt and brusque.

“For now, I’m going to take off the blanket.”

“Whatever.”

Glenn stripped away the blanket Illy was wrapped in.

She was a young girl with impressive red hair. It had been disheveled when she was a captive of the slave traders, but now it was properly combed. The hair on the top of her head stood up, but Glenn knew that was just from the feathers that made up her crest. There were also fluffy down feathers extending from the front all the way around to the back of her neck.

What really stood out, however, were her arms and legs.

From both of her upper limbs, which were equitable to human arms, she had the signature wings of a harpy. The underlying color of her feathers was red like her hair, but the outer stretches of her wings, her flight feathers, were a gradation of white to black. Among the diversely colored wings of the harpy, the color tone of her wings was somewhat on the subdued side of the spectrum.

However, Illy’s wings seemed relatively big in comparison to her body. Glenn felt that she must have had quite the ability to fly.

Her legs had sharp talons like a falcon. Glenn thought absently to himself that it would hurt to be kicked by her. It seemed highly likely that the young harpy girl would attack with these talons if she tried to resist the examination, so he made a mental note to be careful of her kicks.

“Please stand and spread out your wings for me, please.”

“Okay.”

Illy thrust out her wings. Just as Glenn had thought, they were quite big compared to her body.

The shapes and sizes of certain monster species—including harpies—could vary depending on the region where they lived. The differences between these subspecies could be quite intense. For example, while the centaur subspecies might only differ in size and coat color, the differences between subspecies of mermaids and harpies could be quite dramatic.

Harpies had particularly varied characteristics, due to the many colors and shapes their feathers could take, as well as the varying sizes of their wings and the many shapes of their crests. Individual feather colors were mainly passed down through their parents but in practice, a diverse combination of colors and shapes could be seen, enough so that it was said no two harpies shared the same plumage.

Some raptor-like harpies looked like owls and hawks, while other harpies resembled ground-walking birds like ostriches and chickens, and others still lived seabird lifestyles on the shores and islands of the world. Even so, it was nevertheless possible to broadly categorize all the different subspecies of harpy. However, since all the different subspecies were able to marry and have children with one another, this also meant there was a possibility that their individual characteristics would be mixed together in the children they produced.

Glenn wondered what sort of characteristics her parents had passed down to her, to give her this appearance.

“Hmph… Make it quick,” Illy said.

Glenn first began touching the base of her wings—what would have been her upper arms had she been human. It was near this area that harpies’ arms transformed into bird wings. Glenn closely observed the area where skin transformed into feather. However, there wasn’t anything especially out of the ordinary. The base of the wing was sensitive, though; it was a place where dormant pathogens could easily lurk.

“I’m going touch them now, okay?”

“Hm… Ah, uuunh.”

Illy stirred slightly but didn’t give any other indication that she wanted Glenn to stop touching her. He began stroking her wings, but there wasn’t anything unusual there either.

“I’m going to go a bit further in now.”

“Ah! Hnh!”

Glenn started to force his finger into Illy’s wing.

With a majority of her flight feathers having fallen out, the density of feathers on her wings was weak, and Glenn quickly reached the surface of Illy’s skin beneath the feathers. The areas where her feathers had fallen out felt like rough bird skin, but that in and of itself was normal. Indeed, Glenn founding nothing that was particularly unusual.

He wondered if there weren’t some other area of her wings exhibiting signs of strangeness and again began slipping his fingers into her feathers.

“Make sure to let me know if it hurts.”

“That much doesn’t hurt… Hn, hng.”

There wasn’t any swelling or bleeding.

When Glenn had heard her feathers were falling out, his first thought had been some kind of skin disease. Yet Illy’s skin was firm and appeared to be healthy. He couldn’t see a rash or anything of that nature. He even tried touching the skin on the tips of her wings and still found no irregularities.

“Miss Illy, do your wings feel itchy or painful at all?” he asked.

“Not really…”

There were no external injuries, either.

Even humans would experience swelling and hair loss if they were bruised on their head. Glenn had thought Illy might be dealing with something similar, but as she had no injuries, he felt it was safe to exclude that possibility.

He again felt through her wing with his finger and this time began examining around the glossy, red down that had yet to fall out. It was protected with a moderate coating of oils and fat. In fact, her down feathers were in excellent condition. Harpy feather quills and bedding were actually considered very high-quality merchandise. In addition to being superb at keeping in warmth, harpy down’s softness was something other materials had a hard time imitating.

“I’m going to pull on them a little, okay?”

“Hurry up.” Illy was thoroughly cold and short in her reply. Glenn had been troubled by Lulala’s extreme degree of embarrassment when he had examined her, but this cold reception and level of indifference made it just as difficult for Glenn in its own way.

“Nh—ah!”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s fine…”

Even when he pulled on the red down feathers, they showed no sign of falling out. This wasn’t surprising, though, as it was only a specific portion of her feathers that were falling out—the strong and sturdy flight feathers on the outer part of her wings.

Through these examinations, Glenn determined that it was extremely unlikely her ailment was caused by some kind of skin disease.

It was possible that stress was causing her to lose her feathers, but they had a lustrous sheen to them and were in good health. Considering things from a mental health perspective as well, Glenn was sure that her time with the slave traders had been far more stressful than her current situation.

“…Hm.”

“What?”

“Do you have an appetite? Are you eating properly?”

“Hmph.” Illy took something out from the pouch on her waist, a handful of lightly roasted nuts. Skillfully taking them with her wings, Illy began to chow down on them. “I only eat these. That a problem?”

“No, that’s fine. You don’t need to force yourself to eat right here and now.”

Glenn interpreted it to mean that she had an appetite but couldn’t eat anything substantial. Harpies preferred to eat nuts and beans, anyway. It didn’t mean there was anything wrong with her diet or eating habits.

She could have just told me that, Glenn thought to himself.

He wondered if there was some meaning behind her physically showing Glenn that she could eat, or if it were simply because she was a bad talker.

“Can you show me your head?”

“Huh, why?”

“I want to look at your crest.”

In response to the abrupt proposition, Illy glared at Glenn.

Glenn tried his best not to frighten her and returned her glare with a bright smile, but Illy quickly stooped forward and presented her head to Glenn. She glared at him with her upturned eyes; it appeared she was staying on her guard.

Glenn wondered why she was acting so hostile towards him in the first place. He couldn’t recall doing anything to cause her to be so displeased with him.

“I’m going to touch it now.”

“Mhm…” Illy brought her wings up to her face and made a strange expression.

The crest that bobbed on top of her head was a greyish red. At first glance, it looked like just a piece of her hair sticking up, but the crest didn’t grow out of her skin like hair and instead was connected to her bones. As such—

“Hn.”

To some extent, Illy could move it up and down of her own free will.

A harpy’s crest had a number of different roles, from signaling one’s presence to one’s friends, to making one attractive to the opposite sex—but as Illy was able to move it a bit, it appeared there weren’t any problems with hers.

“Does it hurt?”

“It… i-it tickles…”

Glenn had a hard time getting a hold of the crest as it bobbed to and fro.

He had a sudden, unconscious urge to chase after and play with her bouncing crest, but that would clearly have been going beyond what his position required, and he managed to control himself. He also felt bad when he saw how itchy Illy seemed to be and took his hand off of her head.

“Now then, last up is this.”

Glenn slid his hands down her body.

“H-hyaaaah?!”

At Illy’s sharp cry, both Tisalia and Sapphee looked up from their cleaning towards Glenn.

“Oh, sorry! Stay still for me, okay?”

“Y-yo—ah! All of a sudden…! Huah?!”

“Allow me to take your temperature.”

“S-say that first… Aaaagh!”

Glenn’s fingertips were in Illy’s armpit. The clinic had mercury thermometers, but they were quick to break, and the readings they gave were unreliable. As a higher-performance thermometer had not yet been developed, his most reliable method for taking temperatures was using his intuition and experience.

Out of the corner of his eye, Glenn could see Sapphee sink down as she let out a sigh. She clearly thought he had made a mess of things again, somehow or other, but there wasn’t any way he could put a stop to it now.

Illy’s shoulders and armpits were bare, a trait common among all harpies. Considering the structure of their wings, sleeves would have only gotten in the way.

“Hyahn!”

“Please don’t move.”

“Th-they’re—they’re cold!”

“Yes, I’m sure my hands must feel cold to you. Harpies have a naturally high internal body temperature.”

“Urrrrggghhhh!”

Illy struggled, her face turning red, but Glenn had given her a strict order not to move. If she shifted the wrong way, the accuracy of Glenn’s temperature reading would go down.

As if she had finally resigned herself to what was going on, Illy tiredly dropped her wings and stopped resisting Glenn.

“One-hundred-point-four degrees. No problems with your body temperature… Thank you, that concludes the examination.”

“Doctor!” Sapphee said. “Didn’t I tell you to be considerate!”

“Gwah!” Glenn, caught by an outstretched snake tail, involuntarily let out a strange noise.

Glenn thought that this time he was absolutely in the wrong and resigned himself to Sapphee’s chastising. She let go and dropped Glenn to the floor as if saying she had given up and thus conveyed her anger to him.

“Oh my, Doctor—are you okay?” Tisalia asked. “That snake woman is quite violent, isn’t she?”

“I don’t want to hear that from a horsewoman who can only solve things with her spear!” Sapphee retorted.

“Both of you, take it easy. We’re still in front of the patient.”

Even when tangled up in Sapphee’s tail, Glenn remained calm and collected.

Illy had a somewhat pouting look in her eyes, but she kept staring straight at Glenn. Her eyes looked serious and earnest. Glenn knew this look very well. They were the eyes of a patient waiting for the results of an examination. Eyes that fearfully asked what sickness was hiding itself in their body.

“Doctor…what kind of disease is this?”

“It’s not a disease.” Glenn spoke in as gentle a voice as possible.

“You’re not sick. Your feathers are falling because you’re molting. This happens with the change of the season… The feathers that have fallen out will regrow soon. Don’t worry.”

Just as many animals shed their summer fur for a warmer winter coat, harpies molted to adequately greet the change of seasons. There wasn’t any problem with her physical health, and there wasn’t any wear and tear on her feathers from stress. In addition to that, since there weren’t any external injuries or skin damage, it meant that this problem of hers wasn’t from any sickness or disease. It was just a normal physiological phenomenon.

“You should make sure to eat properly and rest well to try and get your ability to fly back as soon as possible.”

“…You’re lying.” Illy bit her lips. She was looking down so Glenn couldn’t see her expression, but she seemed frustrated, somehow. “That’s not true.”

“I’m not lying. You’re not sick.”

“I’m not sick?! What?! That can’t be! I’ve never had anything like this happen before! Sure, my feathers always fall out and come back at the end of the season but…I was still able to fly when that happened! Up until now I could always fly! There’s no way molting would make me unable to fly!”

She could no longer fly because this time, even her flight feathers were molting. Harpy wings were very delicate and just losing two or three feathers could have an immediate effect on their ability to fly.

“More feathers are falling out than normal, that’s all. It happens sometimes. Losing the ability to fly from molting is something that often happens to harpies—”

“You’re wrong! I’ve never stopped being able to fly from something like this! It’s not normal!”

“But you’re not sick…”

“Whatever!” Illy stamped her feet in frustration and annoyance.

Glenn couldn’t hazard a guess as to why she had gotten so hysterical. Had she been hoping she was sick? He had a feeling that wasn’t exactly the case.

“I’m not listening to you anymore, you quack! I didn’t even want to see you! I hate all of you!”

“Hold on a sec, Illy. Now, calm down a sec and listen— “

“…!”

What happened next Glenn felt was probably something she did on reflex.

He approached her, thinking that he should try and calm her down. However, possibly due to his thoughtless method for measuring her temperature a few minutes prior, a frightened look came to Illy’s face, and she brandished her legs at Glenn.

Her raptor legs, which ended in sharp talons could easily rend through human flesh. Glenn stood captivated by the claws as they lunged towards him from below, like a scythe.

“Pardon me,” Tisalia said, stopping their approach with a broomstick extended in front of Illy’s legs. If things had kept going in the direction they’d been headed, Glenn’s face would have been deeply cut. Tisalia remained perfectly calm and wedged herself between the two, protecting Glenn from Illy’s talons as if she were dealing with a child.

“This bird’s got quite a bad kicking habit, doesn’t she?” she said.

“Hmph! Grrrrrrrrr!” Illy’s face was bright red. She looked as if she didn’t know whether to be angry or to cry, and stood there trembling for a moment, until she finally dashed past Tisalia.

“Hey—wait, Illy!” Glenn called after her.

There was no chance to stop her.

Illy was surprisingly fast as she ran off on foot. It was enough to make Glenn think that with legs that fast, there wasn’t any need for her to fly through the sky in the first place.

“Now what to do…”

“You’re far too tactless, Doctor.” Sapphee didn’t hesitate to heap another blow on the already dejected Glenn. However, she too looked troubled as she rubbed the scales at the sides of her eyes. “Even so…I do feel that there was something off. No matter how inconsiderate you may be, was it really necessary for her to get that mad?”

Glenn was of a similar mind. He had a feeling that the reason she was annoyed and angry had nothing to do with what he had done—but if that were the case, then what was her reason? Glenn was sure he hadn’t been incorrect in his diagnosis but wondered if perhaps he hadn’t been able to properly explain it to her.

“Anyway, let’s head after her. We don’t know where she might end up in her current state,” he said.

“That’s right—we have to hurry.”

Harpies were known to do things their own way even under normal circumstances, and other races of monsters often called them oblivious and forgetful, but the cause of that lay in their excitable personality. There was a good chance Illy might do something unexpected out of desperation. Her species had a tendency to become sidetracked and fixated, ignoring everything else around them when they were seized by one thing in particular.

Glenn couldn’t help but wonder what might happen given how upset she’d been.

“Doctor, may I say something?” Tisalia asked, handing the broom she used to defend Glenn from Illy’s claws over to Sapphee. “Wouldn’t chasing after her right now just make things worse?”

“Y-you might be right…”

“Forgive me if this is presumptuous, but…” Tisalia’s stare was fixed in the direction that Illy had run toward. “Can you leave this up to me? As luck would have it, I’m rather confident in the strength of my legs.” Stooping down and rubbing her front legs, she smiled graciously.

 

***

 

It was easy for Tisalia Scythia to chase after Illy.

Illy was, in fact, quite fast. Nevertheless, there wasn’t any monster that had legs capable of outrunning a centaur on open ground.

Running out of the quarantined cottage, the tracks of a harpy’s talons were punctured in the earth like foot prints. This was the evidence Illy had left behind when she forcibly stomped away, unable to take off and fly.

The tracks Tisalia followed ended at the banks of the river that flowed through the town. Along these banks, the harpies piled up felled timber from around the village for safekeeping. Using this lumber, the harpies built their splendid homes, whether on the ground or into the sides of the precipitous cliffs above.

Illy was lingering around this lumber storage area.

She gave Tisalia a sharp glare. “…Just you? What about the doctor?”

“I thought that even if he did come, you wouldn’t listen to what he said anyway.”

“So, you do get it.”

“You had some business with me, correct?”

Tisalia Scythia had frequently felt a pair of eyes staring at her while spending time in the village. Illy had most likely been out and about in the village and had just made sure to keep to areas where Glenn wouldn’t see her. Tisalia wasn’t sure what had caused Illy to be so interested in her. Whatever the reason, she had been examined by Glenn in order to meet with Tisalia.

“Quite a roundabout way of going about it,” the centaur said. “If you wanted to meet with me, you could have just asked directly.”

“The elder told me…that if I wanted to talk with the Scythian heiress, I needed to be properly looked at beforehand… Not that it mattered, anyway.”

“I see.”

In other words, Tisalia thought, this had been the elder’s strategy all along. That eagle-like elder looked to be taking it easy, but it seemed that he was actually quite shrewd.

“Y-you’re an arena fighter, right?” Illy asked.

“Yes… And?”

Tisalia found it insolent of Illy to address a monster she had only just met with “you,” but she tried as hard as possible to answer calmly. She admonished herself in her head, thinking it would be unreasonably immature to be angered by the words of a child.

“I’ve gone to see a lot of matches,” Illy said. “I’d ditch my work here in the village and fly down and stand on the pillars in the arena. You can see the fights for free there—did you know that?”

“Naturally, if even paying customers can’t sit up there, I don’t care if you paid or not.”

It was certainly a special privilege of those who could fly. The pillars that surrounded the arena were about the same height as a church’s steeple. The only people who could easily get up to those seats were harpies and other monsters capable of flight.

As an arena fighter, however, Tisalia wasn’t impressed to hear Illy boldly brag that she watched the arena fights for free.

“I can’t fly anymore… Now that I’m like this.”

“I still don’t see where you’re coming from. What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I want to be like you.” Illy looked Tisalia straight in the eyes, her own eyes sparkling.

Tisalia was pretty sure this was the first time she’d seen Illy raise her head up, the harpy girl who had stared morosely at the ground during Glenn’s entire examination.

“You’re so amazing and brilliant. I didn’t know your name or anything, but I thought you were so cool when you were fighting in the arena.”

“If you’re a fan, then I’d like to thank you. But that isn’t the case, is it?”

“I want to do what you do.”

Tisalia heaved a sigh. The stars of the arena were its female fighters. It was something Lindworm was known for. There were many, both human and monster, who aspired to such a profession. It was true that the appearance of beauty and battle mixed together was a charming one, and if one became a top-tier fighter, the prestige and rewards for doing so were extraordinary. But of course, an arena fighter wasn’t something easy to become.

Although they were all imitations, weapons were permitted. And until the referee handed down his judgment of the match, fighters clashed with one another with all of their strength inside the small coliseum. The fights always came with injuries, and the prize money the lower ranked fighters battled for was smaller than the tears of a sparrow. Yet despite that, one’s scheduled matches could completely fill up the day.

There was training, as well as a number of tests, that one had to undergo to even become qualified to be a fighter in the first place. Tisalia wondered if Illy was prepared to overcome all of that.

The Scythia clan had made their name known throughout the continent as mercenaries, and yet even the heiress of such a warrior clan was only a rank three fighter. The top rank of the arena was filled with an incredible group of fighters. The sheer, exceptional skill required to reach that pinnacle was evident in the former number one fighter: Kunai Zenow, an undead martial artist who couldn’t die even when killed.

“Just wanting to be a fighter doesn’t mean you’ll be able to become one,” Tisalia said.

“I will! This village is too small for me! I used to live in the city slums… I’m much more suited for Lindworm than this little village!”

“You hate the village? Everyone here is nice, right?”

“That’s not it. The village elder and everyone else aren’t bad people, but…I just… When I skip out on work—and even now when I’m sick and can’t fly anymore—they’re all still nice to me… That’s why I can’t take it! It’s uncomfortable being in a village like this that doesn’t even throw out a useless person like me!”

Tisalia thought the village’s attitude was a result of the harsh, unforgiving environment that surrounded it, halfway to the summit of the Vivre Mountains. The colony was on the banks of the river, surrounded by precipitous cliffs and was most likely cut off from the world by snow in winter. A mountainside village like this one was supported by its residents all helping each other out. Those who could move would fly to obtain necessary items for the village and bring them back. That was the wisdom of these harpies, who had lived here since before Lindworm had been built.

“I want to go somewhere away from here… I can fly, so I can go anywhere I want.”

“Becoming a fighter is no ordinary task. Do you know any martial arts?”

“I can hold my own in a fight! Want me to show you?”

Raising her legs up, Illy gave a ferocious smile. Tisalia imagined it was something she had learned naturally from living in the slums, given the dangerous weapons Illy had been equipped with since birth.

However, Illy’s dream was entirely out of the question. Illy was mistaken about both the arena and its fighters. She seemed to think it would be enough to simply win battles and beat her opponent.

“Well, the arena—they’ll accept anyone who comes to them, so long as you tell them you want to be a fighter,” Tisalia said. “But if you only go into it half-heartedly, you’ll have a terrible time of it. It’s a hard thing to hear, but you should give up on it.”

“What?! You’re just like everyone else! You’re saying it’s impossible for me, is that it?!”

Tisalia figured that the village elder must have reprimanded her with the same words. Illy was clearly frustrated. She wondered if the harpy’s frustrations had anything to do with her feathers falling out. Tisalia had no idea— in fact, that sort of thing was Glenn’s territory. It wasn’t something for her to think about.

“What goes on in the arena isn’t just a fight or a brawl,” Tisalia said. “It’s a place to compete with beauty and technical skill.”

“That’s basically just a fight, isn’t it?”

“No. I’m saying that first of all, one’s character and behavior are important above all else.”

Illy tilted her head back and forth as though Tisalia’s words weren’t really getting through to her.

Tisalia heaved another deep sigh. It seemed to her that no matter what she said to the harpy, she wouldn’t get it. Tisalia wasn’t particularly good at expressing herself either—or rather, her personality made her think it was faster to use her body to explain things than her words.

“All right, then. I guess I’ll accept your challenge. Show me what you’ve got.”

“We’re fighting? You’re on! Sounds good to me. I’m not gonna be responsible if you get hurt!”

Illy raised her legs and bared her claws.

Tisalia picked up a suitable piece of lumber that was lying around and readied it like a spear. Illy had trained herself in street brawls against hoodlums in the slums, and Tisalia wondered just how well she would stand her ground against her spear technique.

“First of all, a fighter needs to show courtesy to the audience and their opponent.”

Readying her spear of timber, Tisalia realized something: She was angrier at Illy than she had thought.

“To clarify—your manners have been unacceptable from the very start, calling the young man who saved you from slave traders a quack doctor! I’ll be sure to punish your insolence. Now, come at me if you dare!”

Illy kicked strongly off the ground and sprung toward Tisalia.

With all the free time she’d had recently, this spur-of-the-moment fighting test was the first good exercise she’d had in a while.

 

***

 

“…That was quite reckless of you.”

Glenn gently dabbed the disinfectant-soaked cotton cloth on Tisalia’s cheek.

“O-ow! It huuurts!”

“Just try to bear with it for a moment.”

Glenn was treating the line of sharp scratches that ran across Tisalia’s face. Knowing that Tisalia devoted herself day in and day out to martial arts in the arena, Glenn couldn’t hide his surprise that her face had been injured.

Tisalia had flown into the clinic long after the examinations for the day had been finished. Glenn wondered what kind of battle had played out between her and Illy. Preparing dinner further back in the clinic, Sapphee didn’t even attempt to hide the exasperated look of amazement on her face.

“I didn’t plan on going easy on her, but…I made a mistake.”

“Illy’s knowledgeable about fighting? “

“Not at all. The way she fought—it was a vulgar way to brawl. I suppose that’s why her claws ended up grazing my cheek…”

In all honesty, Glenn didn’t understand anything about fighting.

However, beauty and grace were important assets for female arena fighters. Tisalia took care to maintain a suitable appearance, and even in a street bawl would surely want to avoid any injuries to her face. All that said, it seemed Illy had the fighting capability to graze Tisalia with her attacks.

“Well, even still, I was able to give her a thorough thrashing with that piece of lumber, you know? Oh, ho, ho, ho!”

“You went easy on her, right?”

“Of course. It was nothing more than a little disciplining… I can’t deny that I got a bit stubborn about it, though…”

With the gauze stuck to her wounds, Tisalia’s treatment was complete. The wound itself wasn’t serious, and Glenn was confident it would heal quickly without leaving a scar. The problem was with Illy.

Tisalia said she had gone easy on the young harpy girl, but Illy had still been hit with a piece of lumber, so it wasn’t out of the question for her to have a bruise or two. Glenn wanted to examine her as well, if possible, but it was hard for him to believe she would obediently let him take a look at her injuries.

“What’d you think would come of fighting with a young girl like that, anyway?”

“Really!” Sapphee said, cutting into their conversation.

Tisalia sulked as if she were making an excuse for herself. “I lost my cool because she insulted Dr. Glenn.”

It was a fair enough defense—being a rather skilled physician, Glenn didn’t exactly merit being referred to as a quack.

“In fact, Miss Sapphee,” Tisalia went on, “she insulted the doctor, right? Shouldn’t you be the one to get angry and tell her off?”

“Oh, I’m angry all right,” Sapphee said. “Right now, I’m thinking about how to make that young harpy drink some anesthetic.”

“You don’t hold anything back, do you…?”

“It was just a joke.” Sapphee kept a composed look as she made her outrageous statements. Well-versed in pharmaceutical and assassination techniques, she was certainly capable of carrying out her threats if she really wanted to—a frightening thought, indeed.

“Anyway, we can’t just leave Illy alone,” Glenn said. “We have to do something.”

“But Doctor? She isn’t sick at all, right?” Tisalia asked.

“That’s the problem…”

Glenn put his head in his hands. Illy was molting—just growing new feathers. He was sure that was case. The shedding and regrowth of feathers or fur in accordance with the changing of the seasons was a trait shared by many monsters. Illy’s symptoms matched a molting diagnosis.

“Is there any chance your diagnosis was incorrect?”

“Even if that were the case, I can’t think of any other illness she might have…”

It would be a serious matter if Glenn had overlooked some sign of illness, but he couldn’t recall anything that like that in his examination. Had he missed something crucial? As a doctor, it was always a possibility. He was still relatively inexperienced and because of that, he always felt the need to doubt and double-check his conclusions.

“I think Illy’s problem is that there’s something wrong with the girl herself,” Tisalia said.

The centaur was strangely worried about Illy for some reason. Glenn wondered if it was because Illy was an orphan like her two attendants, Kay and Lorna. Tisalia was truly a very compassionate centaur princess.

“She said she originally lived in the slums,” Tisalia said. “Her new life is a big change from what she was used to, so maybe that’s why she’s trying to run away. Or more likely, she is still trying to live as she did back then. Her wings would make it easy to move from place to place, looking for somewhere she feels at home… It’s probably that wild lifestyle, always alone, with no one to rely on, that attracted the slave traders to her in the first place.”

“You think that’s why she’s saying she wants to become a fighter, too?” Glenn wondered.

“It’s just a nice excuse so she can run away from here,” Tisalia replied. “Honestly, I’d rather she didn’t make light of us fighters like that.”

Glenn thought that since she had lived and survived by relying on her fighting skills, it made sense that she wouldn’t quite be able to adjust to the relaxed atmosphere in the village.

There were other harpies besides Illy who had been captured by the slave traders. However, these other young girls occupied themselves with their work without skipping out or slacking off. They had just recently come to the clinic to greet Glenn and Sapphee. Considering this, Illy was the only one who was unable to adapt to life in the village.

“If it really is her molt…” Sapphee began.

“So long as her flight feathers return, she’ll be able to fly again. If that happens, she might decide to fly away from the village for good this time,” Glenn said.

“…You might be right.”

“Seeing how she acted, I wouldn’t be surprised if she became desperate.”

She’d fly away, off to somewhere far away from here?

If she did, there was a chance that she might be captured again by people like the slave traders who’d taken her before. They had handled the harpies with care in their own way, but Glenn was sure that kind of care among traders was far from normal. Threats to her life and chastity were lying in wait everywhere.

Glenn’s thoughts were getting bleaker and bleaker.

Even though it was almost certain that she wasn’t sick, the other circumstances surrounding her made Glenn and the others’ heads fill with worry.

“If I just knew what subspecies Illy was…” he said.

“Subspecies?” Tisalia asked.

“The subspecies of harpy. Compared with other monsters, harpies have many different subspecies, and each has unique ways of living and illnesses they can contract. With her large wings and strong talons—well, I think it’s pretty clear she has some high-soaring raptor subspecies in her veins, but…”

Her dislike of being tied down to one place might not just be a part of Illy herself but instead could be a characteristic of her subspecies. Her quick-to-fight temperament was another trait often seen in raptor subspecies.

“That girl’s an orphan, right? She did say something about not knowing her lineage,” Tisalia said.

“During your fight?”

“Well, I kind of got her to say as much.”

Glenn thought that if he knew what type of wings Illy’s parents had, he would understand why she wasn’t able to fly. But if she didn’t know her own lineage, then he couldn’t hold out hope on that front.

“That, and I have this.” Tisalia drew a single feather from her breast pocket.

“It’s one of Illy’s—it fell out in the middle of our battle… I thought it was particularly big. Could it help your diagnosis?”

“I’ll have a look.” Glenn took the feather and stared at it closely.

It was a deep gray. The color changed to a jet black at the feather’s tip. It was quite long, even when compared to other big and sturdy flight feathers. Glenn thought that it must have come from the section of flight feathers known as the primary flight feathers.

The feather had no flaws and a beautiful gray sheen to it. It was plain but with a stained tinge of color. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the feathers that were falling out, so it really did seem that Illy was in good health. Yet—

“…?”

There was a section on the feather that nearly blended in with all the gray, but Glenn still caught sight of it: a spot at the base of the feather where it was turning red.

Though there had been a number of red feathers at the base of her wing, Glenn had been sure her flight feathers were all essentially black or gray.

A red-winged harpy.

Glenn thought to himself, then said, “…Sapphee?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Can you help me out a little tomorrow?”

“Of course. Anytime, anywhere.”

There was nothing more reassuring than his partner’s immediate answer, given without knowing any of the details of Glenn’s request. Then he realized that she was using both her hands and the top of her tail to hold plates and carry them. Glenn thought she must be hinting that it was time for dinner.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Yes, well, you see,” Glenn said as he twirled the feather in his hand, “we’re going to have a treasure hunt through the village.”

 

***

 

Glenn wanted to search for Illy’s feathers—as many as they could find.

He and Sapphee set out searching for the feathers together. However, they were in a harpy village—there was a considerable number of feathers to be found on the roads, as harpies lost a number of feathers over the course of a normal day. Among all these feathers, they had to collect only those that belonged to Illy.

The work was rather time-consuming.

Sapphee held up her parasol as she helped Glenn. However, he didn’t want to expose the albino lamia to the rays of the sun, so he had her collect feathers indoors as much as he could.

For the most part, Glenn was the one running around outside collecting feathers—along with the help of Tisalia and her capable legs. As expected of the horsewoman, her physical fitness was above average; she rushed to every corner of the village and collected all of the feathers that appeared to belong to Illy.

After spending the whole day on the task, they had collected quite a bundle of feathers. In the village’s open square, Glenn used a magnifying glass to examine them in detail.

“How is this, Doctor?” Tisalia asked.

“Thank you, Miss Tisalia.”

Since coming to the village, he had done nothing but rely upon both Sapphee and Tisalia’s strengths.

After examining the feather, Glenn could see that his guess was correct. No matter what type of feather he looked at, they were all turning faintly red at the shaft. Not only that, but he could see highly saturated tinges of yellows and blues, as well. He wondered what it meant.

“Do you think you’ve figured something out?” Tisalia spoke to Glenn as if she were trying to get into his thoughts as he focused all of his attention on the feathers.

“Yes…probably—if my hunch is correct…”

“It’s some kind of illness, different from molting?”

“No, it’s molting. That is a fact.”

“…?” Tisalia tilted her head.

It wasn’t a misdiagnosis—Glenn was certain that Illy’s symptoms were a result of molting. However, what he was thinking of was something subtly different from molting. He was positive that if he could properly convey that subtle difference to Illy without her misinterpreting him, she would finally understand.

“You’re confident, aren’t you, Doctor?”

“Does it look that way?” Glenn was often told he looked timid and unsure, and rarely heard someone say the opposite.

“Yes, you do. After all, you’re making the same face the fighters in the arena make—a face completely free of indecision. The warriors who face their matches with such a look usually end up winning, you know.”

Being compared to the renowned fighters of the arena was a great honor.

Tisalia combed a hand through her hair and gave a somewhat lonely smile. Looking at her up close, Glenn thought that she was certainly worthy of the many fans she had as a fighter, what with her graceful and shapely features. Bending her body down and bringing her face close to Glenn’s, she made his heart skip a beat, even with their familiar relationship.

“Illy said it herself,” Tisalia said. “‘Being here makes me want to go somewhere else.’”

“Hm? Like where…?”

“Who knows? I’m sure there is somewhere that has what this place lacks. That’s what she’s thinking, that girl.”

An escape—that was what Illy sought. Flying and escaping were similar in nature, after all. The sky was freedom, without anything to hold one down—he wondered if there was something that Illy could get only from being up high in the sky, at heights Tisalia and Glenn could not reach.

“The only one who understands her pain from being unable to fly is Illy herself,” Tisalia said.

“That’s right…”

“It’s… it’s because I’m not smart. When I was a kid, I neglected my studies to exercise with my spear. That’s why I didn’t have any argument or debating skills with which to discourage that girl… When it comes to scolding a child, all I can do is make them understand by knocking them down with a weapon. That girl is foolish, but so am I.” Tisalia was worrying over the harpy girl as if Illy were her younger sister.

Sapphee made a similar face at times when she was talking to Glenn. She might now refer to him as “Doctor,” but for her, Glenn was still a kind of little brother to her.

“But… Miss Tisalia, you’re still worried about Illy,” Glenn said.

“It’s not enough.” Tisalia shook her head. “Worrying about something won’t help or save anyone. But with your extensive knowledge, Doctor, I’m sure we can help that girl.”

“…Thank you.”

Hearing those words made Glenn very happy.

At Tisalia’s smile, Glenn felt somewhat embarrassed and shy, and looked away from her.

At that very moment, in front of his averted gaze, a basket was put down with a thud. The inside was packed with a large number of feathers. Glenn glanced up casually and saw that Sapphee was the one who had brought the basket to them. Her eyebrows were twitching slightly.

“Here you are, Doctor. I gathered the feathers.”

“Hold on. This is so many, Sapphee… But it looks like there are feathers from other harpies mixed in here with Illy’s…?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize that. You see, I just happened to catch a glimpse of Dr. Glenn chatting away with the centaur princess, forgetting all about the observations he should be making.”

“Hold on, Miss Tisalia was just giving me some encouragement, that’s all.”

At Glenn’s words, the twitching of Sapphee’s eyebrows only got worse. For some reason or another, Tisalia gave a loud guffaw.

Glenn wondered if this meant another altercation between Sapphee and Tisalia was on its way. Quarrels were their chief form of communication with each other, and once they got going, Glenn couldn’t help but get wrapped up in trying to mediate the situation.

As Glenn considered how he was going to defuse the situation, Sapphee lowered her eyes. She seemed to have something she wanted to say to Tisalia, but in the end, she simply sighed.

“…Sapphee?”

“It’s nothing. I’m going to get back to work.”

Sapphee slithered off, hiding her face with her parasol. Normally, this would be the moment when she sent sharp and stinging words Tisalia’s way.

The centaur cocked her head to the side in confusion. “…I guess Miss Sapphee must be tired?”

“That can’t be.”

“She doesn’t show it on her face, but a cold wind blows into this village. It might be a hard environment for a lamia to be in… It’s important to keep your patients in mind, Doctor, but make sure you show Sapphee some proper appreciation, too—okay?”

“Okay. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Good.” Tisalia smiled.

Glenn thought that he was no match for her, after all. Tisalia was fair and straightforward, even when it came to people she didn’t see eye-to-eye with, like Sapphee. Glenn couldn’t help but respect her honesty and frankness.

“Now then, let’s finish this up before the sun goes down.” Glenn smacked his cheeks to psych himself up. He was just thinking that he should start by sorting through the feathers Sapphee had brought, when—

A single harpy landed in the village square.

“Dr. Glenn! So, this is where you were!”

It was the man in charge of leading the younger harpies in the village. His muscular body was dazzling, but there was a distinct look of panic on his face.

“What’s wrong? Is there an emergency?”

“No…that’s not it. Dr. Glenn, have you seen Illy today?”

As they were told this, Glenn and Tisalia looked towards one another. He had a bad feeling about the man’s question, but all he could say was, “No, I haven’t seen her today.”

“It seems Illy isn’t anywhere in the village. She’s probably left.”

Glenn’s intuition had proven correct. Next to him, Tisalia pressed her forehead into her hand and let out an exasperated, “That girl…”.

“I will look for her,” Glenn replied without a second thought. “With her being unable to fly, she shouldn’t be able to get far before nightfall!”

Tisalia dashed off before she could hear the last of Glenn’s words. She seemed to have some knowledge of where Illy might have gone, though that was most likely not the case. Perhaps Tisalia was thinking to use her naturally strong legs to search every nook and cranny to find her. It was a simple strategy, but with Tisalia’s legs, Glenn thought it might not be a bad method to use after all.

Continuing after Tisalia, Glenn also dashed out of the village square. As he left, he thought about the words he wanted to say to Illy when they found her.

The sun was already halfway hidden behind the peaks of the mountains.

 

***

 

The moon was out.

Illy loved the view of the moon, visible against the cold night. She had heard that the moon that rose over Lindworm was beautiful, but when she finally laid eyes on it for the first time, it had been more splendid than she ever could have imagined. Illy enjoyed staring at it as she flew, or while she sat in the trees or atop a tall building.

Now she could no longer fly.

Nevertheless, Illy still wanted to be someplace high up, as high as she could get. Sneaking away from the village, she clawed her way up a tree using her own strength. Without flight, getting up the tree had given her a hard time. What an inconvenience, she thought to herself.

Illy had always lived in the slums. She didn’t know her parents. By the time she was old enough to wonder about such things, she was living huddled together with the other children of the slums.

She ate food that she stole from the shops and borrowed roofs without permission to use for her bed. That way of living was common sense to her. She would have been lying if she said it wasn’t difficult, but even then, Illy knew that she could survive. She had powerful wings and sharp talons. She was confident in her ability to win a fight, and if she were ever in a pinch without a way out, she could just escape into the sky. That was how she had regarded her life—at least, until she was plucked up by the slave traders.

“What the hell…?”

Getting captured by the bandits in the first place had been the beginning of her miscalculations.

She was forced to lay countless numbers of eggs. After that, when she thought she would die from her impacted oviduct, that doctor had come to save her. Illy was grateful for that, but shortly after, that overly arrogant and self-important patchwork woman had told her to go to the harpy village. The woman said if Illy didn’t have a place to go back to, then she could go there.

But this wasn’t the right place for her to live.

Once I see an opening, I’m getting out of this village as fast as possible.

Yet just as Illy began to think this way, her feathers started to fall out. In the beginning, she thought it was the molting that came with the changing of the seasons, just as the doctor had said, but soon she knew that it was definitely something else. She could tell by the way her feathers were falling out. Until now, she had always been able to fly when her feathers had come out. That was how she knew it had to be some kind of serious illness.

Illy was sure she could no longer fly.

She had loved flying through the air and was confident she would be able to get through this illness so long as she could fly high into the skies. But now that she was unable to fly, she no longer had any place to go.

She had thought for sure that the doctor who saved her before would be able to do something and had summoned up all her courage to try and meet with him. Despite that, not only had he not helped her fly again, but he’d said her condition was nothing more than molting. It had been an utter disappointment.

She had been thinking that, even if she couldn’t fly, she could at least go to Lindworm and become an arena fighter, but…

“Ugh… Ow…”

Soon after her examination, she had been given a thorough thrashing by Tisalia.

Illy understood now. She knew Tisalia’s martial arts were fundamentally different from the style of street fighting that she had picked up in the back alleys of the slums. Illy’s unfair and malicious style of fighting wouldn’t stand much of a chance against a martial artist whose skills had been learned completely, starting from the fundamentals. She had been able to lightly wound her opponent, but it was still a long way off from the clashes in the arena that she admired so much.

“What the hell? Everyone’s against me…”

Illy continued to stare at the moon. It held the same commanding presence as always up in the sky. An iridescence shone around it, perhaps because of the slight cloud cover that had formed in the night sky.

Illy thought she was just a joke. No matter what she tried, it all backfired on her. Why couldn’t she do anything?

She wished she could fly to the moon. What was up there? Was it filled with magnificent wonders, the likes of which were nowhere to be found in a small harpy village like this one? If she had wings, could she fly all the way up there?

In an old legend, there was a rainbow goddess with wings of her own and with them, she raced freely across the sky. Uneducated as she was, Illy only knew a bit of the myth, but she remembered that her name was the same as the goddess from that legend.

You can’t go anywhere. Words the centaur had spoken in the middle of their fight echoed in Illy’s mind. High up? Far away? Where are you going to go, flying like that? Someday, the time will come when you have to come down and land. You can’t fly forever.

It was frustrating, but the reason Illy kept thinking back to those words was because she knew that they were true. Even for harpies, extended periods of long-distance flight were exhausting for them. No matter how confident Illy was in her ability to fly, even she had a limit to how far she could go.

Even with her wings—or rather, because she had wings—she still had to come back down to earth.

Of course, she knew that she could never go to the moon.

But if I can’t go to the moon, where can I go? Illy wondered. Which land can I touch down in?

 

***

 

“Doctor, I’ve found her,” Sapphee said.

The sun had set.

Led by Tisalia, Kay, Lorna, and the rest of the young harpies of the village had all been mobilized to look for Illy. Naturally, once day turned to night, it had become difficult to search for her—or at least, that’s what they had thought.

“She’s around here, on top of the tallest tree in the area. She seems to think she’s hidden, but it didn’t fool me.”

Glenn had forgotten—when it came to seeing at night, Sapphee had no equal, equipped with the ability to sense others’ body temperatures. Even without relying on the light of the sun, for a lamia able to “see” body heat, finding a hidden harpy was—if anything—one of her areas of expertise.

Relying on Sapphee’s information and confident in the strength of her legs, Tisalia passed through the woods and arrived at the base of the tree Illy was perched in. Glenn safely continued down the mountain path, thanks to both Tisalia’s leadership and Sapphee, who slithered along, sticking close to the doctor.

The cedar tree Illy had hidden in was a head taller than those surrounding it. Glenn thought that if one climbed high enough up it, they’d be able to see far down to Lindworm. He had no doubt that the light from the Waterways’ glass lamps was quite a beautiful sight to behold.

“No!” Illy shouted. “I won’t come down!”

“You’re not some kitten stuck in a tree!” Tisalia shouted back. “Accept it!”

“No!”

Up ahead, Glenn could hear voices that sounded like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum and arguing with one of their parents.

Having gotten to the tree first, Tisalia was bickering with Illy, who was still up in the tree. Looking up, Glenn could see Illy clinging to the trunk.

“It’s not like I can fly anymore, you know! Just leave me alone!”

“I can’t do that,” Tisalia said. “Apologize to all of the people you’ve made worry!”

“Why are you so concerned about me?!”

“Because she wants to butt her head in other people’s business,” Sapphee whispered, not speaking to anyone in particular. Looking after others and being caring was Tisalia’s forte.

In any event, they couldn’t just leave Illy to herself.

“Listen to me!” Glenn shouted up to Illy.

Illy was quite high up in the tree. If she lost even a bit of her balance, her inability to fly meant she might end up falling. Glenn wanted to avoid exciting her as much as possible and wait until the other harpies arrived to help them get her down.

“What do you want, you hack?! Did you bring medicine or something?!”

“You don’t need any medicine… But it’s true, my diagnosis was a little off.”

“Huh…?”

“I want you to take a look at this.” Glenn took out two different types of feathers from his coat.

Both of them were Illy’s feathers. They were almost exactly the same in shape and color. Even if Glenn had looked closely at them, it was doubtful that he would have been able to see the difference between the two.

“Wh-what do feathers have to do with anything?! Wait a second, those are mine! Don’t go picking them up without my permission!”

“They were left lying on the ground anyway, right?” Tisalia said.

“It’s kinda… kinda embarrassing…” Illy’s face grew red at Tisalia’s words. Glenn wondered if it had been a bad idea to pick up her feathers without asking her first.

However, it had been the only way Glenn could prove his hypothesis. Besides, Illy definitely wouldn’t have given him permission in the first place.

“Let me apologize for taking them without asking,” Glenn said. “But, thanks to them, I figured out why your feathers are falling out.”

“What?! I don’t get what you’re trying to say! They both look the same to me!”

“That’s right—they’re the same feathers.” As to be expected of a harpy, who searched for prey on the ground from high in the sky, Illy’s eyes were able to get a good look at the two feathers in Glenn’s hands even from up in the tree. “These are feathers that grew out of the exact same position on your wing.”

“Wh-what does that mean?”

“One of them fell out naturally. The other one was given to me after your fight with Miss Tisalia… They both have a similar shape, so I deduced that they are both the eighth feather of your primary flight feathers.”

In other words, her feathers were already growing back in, to some extent. One of them may have fallen out naturally, but the other had been ripped out during her brawl with Tisalia. It wasn’t rare for feathers to fall out when one became involved in rigorous physical activity.

“That’s why—your feathers will return to normal. Your symptoms are just molting after all.”

“What… what does that even matter?!” Illy shouted from up in the tree. Glenn couldn’t see from where he was standing, but her voice made it sound like she was crying as she spoke. “Obviously my feathers are going to grow back! Of course I’ll fly again! What does it matter?! Once I can fly, I’m leaving this village for sure this time! If I can’t become a fighter, then there’s no other reason for me to stay, is there?!”

“Illy…” Glenn said

He thought her voice sounded miserable and that the shouting was her way of calling out for help. Tisalia stared up at the tree, looking worried, as well.

Illy was in the rebellious stage of her adolescence. Even if that hadn’t been the case, Glenn was sure that she wouldn’t be reprimanded in the village. Everyone there was nice and would be concerned for her more than anything else, since she had been imprisoned by the slave traders for so long.

No matter who Illy aimed her impassioned rebelliousness at, she wouldn’t get any sort of response.

In fact, Glenn thought that Tisalia’s method of using her martial arts to get through to Illy might have been close to the best possible answer.

But her rebellious stage was soon to come to an end.

“That’s not all.” There wasn’t a single crack in Glenn’s resolve. “While the shape of these two feathers is the same, the color is different. The newer feather has turned red at the base… I’m sorry, Illy. My diagnosis was incorrect after all.”

“Huh? So, you’re saying…”

“It’s true that your symptoms point to molting. However, your molting isn’t because your body’s preparing for winter. The color of your feathers is going to change drastically from here on out. Slowly but surely, your feathers are shifting to a completely different color. That’s because—”

Both Illy and Tisalia held their breath.

“Your wings are molting into those of an adult.”

 

***

 

The moon was out.

Kunai Zenow and her dragon mistress had come and sat in one of the rooms within the Lindworm Central Hospital, the pride of the metropolis of Lindworm. Her mistress sat on the sofa and quietly sipped a cup of tea. Kunai waited directly behind her, standing at attention.

The moon visible from the hospital window was beautiful.

Kunai wondered to herself if this moon were also visible from the harpy village.

“You’re worried about Glenn?” a woman asked.

“Yes. Well, we’re also worried about Illy, too,” Skadi replied.

“That’s right, that’s right.”

Kunai and her mistress were both facing a single woman.

She wore glasses and had a voluptuous body. From the high-quality glasses she wore, it was clear that she earned quite a lot of money working at the hospital. She wore a white coat; Kunai wondered if there was some reason why the woman had purposely left it open around her breasts. Contrary to what one might first suspect, Kunai thought it might have been out of pure carelessness.

The woman was sitting in the hospital director’s desk. Her lower body—composed of eight octopus-like tentacles—was meandering around the desk. She was handling the mountain of piled documents. The work seemed to consist only of looking over the documents and signing them. Still, as Kunai watched her line the papers up three and four at a time to complete in one fell swoop, Kunai wondered if her mind was actually capable of keeping up with it all.

It definitely was.

If it hadn’t been, Cthulhy Squele certainly wouldn’t have been sitting in the director’s chair of the city’s biggest hospital.

“That’s what I mean,” Cthulhy said. “You’re worried, aren’t you Skadi?”

“…………” Skadi said.

“That’s right. She’s a good bodyguard, isn’t she? She’s praising you, Kunai.”

“I’m overjoyed to hear that,” Kunai said with a bow.

The voice of her master, Skadi, was extremely quiet. It was only audible to those people she was extremely close to—such as Kunai Zenow. Cthulhy Squele was another of those select individuals. She was an acquaintance of Skadi’s from an age long since passed. As dragons lived to be several hundred years old, the fact that Cthulhy was a close friend of hers meant that Cthulhy had been alive for quite a number of years herself.

The scylla species were monsters with the lower body of an octopus, said to inhabit the deepest parts of the ocean. Known for their long lives, there were records of some of them living for close to eight hundred years. One theory held that they were the descendants of a certain malevolent god, but Cthulhy herself had an extremely serene personality. At least, Kunai had never seen her grow angry before.

Her one fault, however, was her laziness. Indeed, Kunai thought that her tendency to make such unreasonable demands of her protégé was all due to this laziness of hers.

“But you don’t need to worry,” Cthulhy said. “Illy isn’t sick.”

“………………”

“Huh? ‘Why didn’t I tell Glenn that?’ Well, it’d be boring if I just told him, of course. I want my pupil to grow and learn more, after all.”

In this manner, the busy duo of Cthulhy and Skadi enjoyed a late-night chat between friends.

Cthulhy was always buried under a mountain of paperwork, while Skadi, sitting opposite her, was the Lindworm City Council representative. She had a mountain of work to do herself. The fact that Kunai was the only bodyguard she had brought along with her to this midnight chat was proof of her mistress’s trust in her, and Kunai considered it an honor.

Even so, she was gripped with a feeling similar to envy as she watched Cthulhy speak to her mistress without needing to go through her bodyguard.

“Phoenix.” Cthulhy gave Kunai a suggestive glance. “It’s a legendary species of monster, also referred to as the immortal bird. It’s also said to be a rare species of harpy. Even if its life comes to an end, a phoenix’s body becomes wreathed in flame, and it regenerates back to new again. A bird that never dies. An immortal bird with dazzling crimson wings.”

Immortal, huh?

Kunai felt a certain resonance in the name of the bird, herself being made up of already dead flesh, patched and stitched together. She thought that though something that was dead and something that didn’t die appeared to be complete opposites, they might actually be quite similar.

“But Illy is just a descendent of that species,” Cthulhy continued. “Though she may be a blood relative of the phoenixes, the intermingling between different harpy races means that she shouldn’t think that she’s immortal like the phoenixes of legend. It’s just that she will inherit their beautiful crimson feathers, wings that anyone would admire and adore… At the end of the day, Illy herself is nothing more than a normal harpy. Right?”

“………………”

“‘How did I know?’ Of course I knew. I’m the hospital director, aren’t I?”

Cthulhy Squele.

Without examining the harpy girl even once, simply from hearing of Illy’s current condition, she had determined that her feathers falling out meant that she was molting. Not only that, but she had recognized Illy’s lineage in an instant—that she had the rare blood of a phoenix in her veins and that her molting was because she was changing from a child into an adult.

When it came to the knowledge of monster biology, one could search the whole continent and not find someone to rival Cthulhy.

“She’s being reborn. From drab feathers to wings of fiery crimson.” Cthulhy gave her theory as if she were reciting a poem. “That’s what an adult phoenix is like. It’s hard to believe a child with that lineage was living in the slums and captured by slave traders, though.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but…” Kunai cut in, fully aware of her position. Interfering with their conversation was beyond her place as a bodyguard. Feeling relieved that neither of them reprimanded her for her presumptuousness, Kunai continued. “You understood all of that and still deliberately sent Glenn up to the village?”

“Well, someone like myself isn’t going to attend to a single harpy and her molting, am I? Things here are tough, after all.”

She certainly had a lazy attitude to her, but there was an unavoidable element of truth to her words. Working in the metropolis, she examined a hundred monsters every day. Of course, she wasn’t the only monster doctor, but Kunai understood just by looking at the massive pile of documents that were currently on her desk that the scope of her responsibilities was immense.

When there was a need for her to take a trip up to the village to examine someone, she could simply leave it up to one of the doctors with less on their plate. Fortunately, among Cthulhy’s pupils there was a young doctor with a great deal of promise, the only one she had allowed to open up a practice on their own—Glenn.

“I have a mountain of seriously ill patients I need to attend to. Glenn is capable of dealing with a harpy molting.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s it. That child… He’s got much more time on his hands than I do, you know.” Cthulhy stifled her laughter.

Kunai’s mistress was laughing as well, behind the veil covering her face. Struggling day in and day out as an influential name in the city, she very rarely got to loosen up like this and laugh. The only exception was when she spoke with Cthulhy.

“Is something wrong, Skadi?” Cthulhy asked.

“…………” Skadi said.

“‘You dote on your pupil,’ you say? Why, of course. He’s a very cute pupil. I’ll be in trouble if he doesn’t gain experience along with Sapphee. How exactly will he diagnosis a phoenix molting, I wonder? There are pop quizzes in the real world, too—just like his time in the Academy.”

Cthulhy licked the quill pen she held in her tentacles. The small amount of octopus ink on her tongue transferred to the pen to be used as writing ink. The ink that scylla spit up was very smooth, considered to be of very high quality. Cthulhy used her own and because of it, she never ran out. Thus, using her own ink, she continued signing documents.

“I want him to get more experience quickly and let me take it easy.”

While she put her hope in Glenn only so she could neglect her own duties, Cthulhy still used all eight of her legs and continued to work diligently.

Looking up at the moon, Kunai thought that so long as it was Glenn up there, things would surely go well.

As she thought that, she remembered that she had once hated doctors. Even now, she still hated most of them, but she trusted Glenn and didn’t hate him at all. The neat, clean stitches that kept her together were his work, after all.

She was supposed to hate doctors, and yet—Kunai suddenly felt embarrassed as such thoughts came into her mind.

Even though no blood ran through her veins, she felt like she had a fever, and her face was growing red.

 

***

 

“Doctooooor!” Illy’s wings flapped wide open. “Doctor! Look at them, look at them! See! See!”

“I’ve already seen them many times now, Illy.”

“Look again! See, look, are there any spots that seem rough, or any places where feathers are falling out? Are they okay?”

“A few of them have fallen out, but they’ll all grow back, don’t worry.” As Glenn gave a nod, Illy laughed mischievously.

She spun around and around in the village square. The wings brought with them a vivid color that one might at first mistake for another harpy’s. Every time she laid eyes on Glenn, she would call out for him to stop and check up on the health of her wings.

Illy’s wings had taken on a drastic new appearance.

The original red color of her feathers had become an even brighter crimson red and emitted a mysterious power. Her flight feathers had no trace left of their former gray and black colors. With underlying tones of yellow and blue, they further emphasized Illy’s beautiful vermillion coloration.

Illy’s colors were reminiscent of the cockatoos that inhabited the tropical regions of the world, but the brilliance of her feathers gave the impression that they were ablaze. The hues changed subtly depending on how they reflected in the sunlight. Glenn thought the colors were, perhaps, pretending to flicker like a flame.

Her crest had changed, too. Before, she had only a single feather bobbing up and down atop her head, but now a three-feathered crest had sprung up in its stead, looking like a case of bedhead. Feathers came in and out of sight between the gaps in her hair. That part of her plumage had also changed color to blue and yellow.

Besides those things, nothing else had changed, but the impression she gave was of one who had gone through a drastic transformation.

“Illy!” Catching sight of the harpy from afar, Tisalia’s hooves pounded as she raced over. “You’re barely wearing anything again! You’re a young lady—you need to make sure to dress yourself properly!”

“Whaaat? But then no one would be able to see my feathers!”

“You’ll catch a cold like that! And you need to learn some modesty!”

Tisalia’s lecturing fell on Illy’s deaf ears. The harpy had a bright smile on her face, as if her sulking from before had been nothing more than a lie.

Glenn thought that Tisalia had a point—Illy was quite thinly dressed.

He had no doubt that it was to show off the feathers around her neck, but she was wearing a type of outfit that hung by a string to cover up her chest, so her back and the rest of her upper body were entirely visible. With the cold winds of winter beginning to blow, it was an extremely thin layer of clothing. On top of that, considering all the jumping up and down she did, there were parts of her body that were liable to become visible—ones that she definitely shouldn’t allow others to see.

Seeing a tender-aged young girl prance around in such an outfit would make anyone, not just Tisalia, want to say something.

“Tee hee hee!”

“Don’t laugh when you’re being yelled at!”

Glenn was sure that Illy would stay happy no matter what was said to her. Even through Tisalia’s lecturing and scolding.

“It’s fine! I want everyone to see them!”

“This is quite a different Illy than the one I first examined, isn’t it…?” Glenn said. “That reminds me, why exactly were you so guarded when I first came to see you? Did I do something?”

“Huh?! Um…well…” Illy stopped spinning around and showing off her wings.

“He’s right,” Tisalia said. “You were so rude to him. Listen, you might have died from your oviduct problem if the doctor hadn’t been there, you know. Do you understand?”

“I-I know! It’s just…um, that’s, you know…” Illy quickly looked down at the ground.

Glenn wondered if he had asked her something invasive but reassured himself that the sudden change in her attitude was curious, and he wanted to ask if there were a reason. Illy’s face had turned as red as her brand new wings.

“Umm… Well, it’s…barrassing…”

“Speak clearly!” Tisalia said.

“Jeez! It’s because of my egg laying thing! Dr. Glenn saw all of that! I-I was just embarrassed! That’s all!” Illy shouted with her face beet red.

“Oh, well…” Glenn was embarrassed by his own ignorance. Of course she would be embarrassed. Although it had been part of a medical examination, he had still helped Illy lay an egg. He had spread her legs open and massaged her stomach, as well. It had obviously been part of a medical treatment, and while that itself wasn’t anything for Glenn to feel embarrassed about, he could see quite clearly now how it would be embarrassing from Illy’s perspective.

“Oh, I gotta go show everyone again! Well, um…bye!” Spinning like a tornado, Illy flew off towards where the other harpies were in the village square. She was clearly running away from Glenn and Tisalia, and he wasn’t quick enough to stop her.

Illy’s boasting had already become a daily event in the village, and the other harpies looked just a little exasperated as they sang the praises of her wings.

Glenn didn’t understand exactly how it worked, but it seemed that certain colors and wing types were a kind of status symbol among harpies. The harpy girls close to Illy’s age were completely captivated by her wings, a sight they couldn’t see anywhere else.

“She’s become totally healthy again, hasn’t she?” Sapphee muttered, a hint of amazement and exasperation in her voice.

The rebellious Illy was now just a cheerful young girl. Glenn thought that Sapphee must be thinking about the young mermaid songstress Lulala, whom Sapphee thought of as a younger sister. Illy and Lulala were close in age; Glenn could imagine them getting along quite well if they ever got a chance to meet face to face.

“The village elder was shocked, too,” Glenn said. “He couldn’t believe she’d change so much just from growing in her adult feathers.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Phoenix wings. Her origins unknown, Illy’s molting had all been part of becoming an adult. It was unlikely that her vivid, flame-like wings were anything other than the wings of the mythic monster, the phoenix. Though, of course, Glenn had never even seen a phoenix himself. All he could do was conclude that the similarity was likely, after reading passages from an old medical text.

“Illy wasn’t even aware of it herself, after all.”

“How in the world did a descendent of the immortal phoenix end up an orphan in the slums?” Sapphee wondered.

“I’m sure there were a lot of factors that made it end up that way. All we can do is guess, though.”

Illy’s parents’ time—or rather, the period even before that—had been one of many momentous events, including war and its ensuing chaos. Despite all that, the blood of the phoenix had somehow survived down to Illy’s generation.

Glenn didn’t know what Illy herself thought about it, since she didn’t know what her parents looked like—but at the very least, the phoenix wings she was so proud of right now would surely become a form of encouragement as she continued on in life.

“Knowing your heritage is one of the most grounding factors in life. I’m sure her recovery is, in part, because of that knowledge…” Maybe I shouldn’t have done anything at all, Glenn thought to himself.

After all, her molting would have ended naturally either way—her phoenix wings would grow in without anyone doing a thing. Illy might have recovered all by herself, which meant that there hadn’t been any need to examine or treat her in the first place.

“That’s not true at all,” Sapphee said, immediately cheering Glenn up right as he began to look depressed.

Over in the square, Illy seemed to have found the village elder and was boasting about her wings—but at long last, the village chief ordered her to do some sort of work. She spread her wings, and with two or three powerful flaps, rose up into the air.

A crimson flight.

Her wings weren’t just beautiful. They also seemed to excel at flight. There wasn’t any extra disturbance in the air as her wings cut through it.

“If she had become an adult while she was still depressed and unprepared, Illy probably would have just gotten confused or grown impudent with her new wings,” Sapphee said. “Or she might have actually left the village… I think it’s a good thing that you let her know she was probably going to be an adult after it was all over, Doctor.”

“R-really?”

“Yes. Though everything beyond that was completely useless.” Sapphee was as harsh with her evaluations as ever. This time there were many different areas that Glenn needed to reflect upon.

“Flying away won’t do anything.” Tisalia was still staring up at Illy as she rose higher. “You can only live where you are. That somewhere you wanted to fly to is exactly where you are now.”

While they may have given up their place on the battlefield, Glenn felt the pride of the centaur in Tisalia’s words.

There was only one place where Illy could be. Or rather, in some cases, one was unable to choose where one lived. What would Illy do here—and how would she do it? How would she fly from here on out? Glenn thought that Tisalia’s way of living would be a good example for Illy to learn from.

A single feather fell to the ground, as if Illy couldn’t help but foul the nest she was about to leave. It fluttered down in front of Glenn’s eyes.

Instinctively, Glenn reached out and grabbed it.

“…?!”

“Doctor?”

“Oh, u-uh, it’s nothing.”

It was hot. For a second, it had felt hot, as if it were burning. But, no matter how much he touched it now, the red feather was just a normal harpy feather. There was, of course, no possible way it had actually been on fire.

Was it just my imagination…? Glenn though, wondering if his fatigue had made him feel the nonexistent heat.

On the other hand, what he had felt had been the last vestiges of the continuous death and rebirth of the phoenix, the last heat of their flames. Even as it drifted off into legend, the flame never faded—and now it lived on inside of Illy.

The flame should have cooled long ago, and yet the sense of its scorching heat remained forever on Glenn’s fingertips.

That was the feeling he got from her feather.