#i needed a new project like i need a hole in the head but wcyd

[whimperwoods]

Pyre Whump - Part 1: The Harp

A friend got me into Pyre, so I guess have a new thing? Instead of finding the presumably-human Reader from the game, Hedwyn and co. find a battered little Harp very much worse for the wear. They’re not sure what happened to her in the Commonwealth, but it obviously wasn’t good.

(Also as soon as I started this I realized/discovered Harp anatomy doesn’t make any sense? But anyway mine has talons because Sir Gilman said that thing that made me think they had talons and it seems more useful than the human feet in that drawing in the credits. Also the music includes the word talon. So she has them. Ish. She has bird-based feet.)

tw: bound and gagged, tw: muzzles, tw: mutilation, tw: nondescriptive nudity, tw: past abuse, tw: wing whump, tw: pinioning (past),

*****

It had been a long time since they’d pressed this far west into the Sandfolds, but Hedwyn had a feeling, an itch he couldn’t scratch, and when the blackwagon wouldn’t go any farther without some outside help, he had informed Jodi and Rukey that he was going to press on on foot, just for about an hour or so, and not to worry about him.

He was glad he had.

He was also glad they’d decided to come with him.

“What is that?” Jodi asked, when the faint shape on the ground moved weakly.

Hedwyn was already running toward it, skidding to a halt beside - beside - for a moment, he felt like he couldn’t breathe as he took it in.

Rukey was beside him only because the cur hadn’t cared enough to push ahead, and he answered for both of them. “It’s a harp. I’ve never seen one in person before.”

The thing on the ground was filthy, trembling, and tucked tightly in on herself, at first glance more creature than person.

She was naked, save for a heavy black collar around her neck, and what remained of her wings were bound behind her with more thick leather straps. He’d seen harps sent here before, their wings clipped to keep them from trying to fly back up the waterfall. This was - different.

The girl’s wings weren’t clipped, they were mangled, well beyond anything he’d seen even on the Bloodborder, in the aftermath of battle. One was clearly shorter than the other, and both looked ragged, even bunched up and harnessed together. Her legs were bound, too, her face trapped in an ugly leather muzzle with air holes that had almost certainly saved her life, and he found himself kneeling beside her before he could think it through.

Jodi was slow, now, not like she’d been when he was a kid and she wasn’t so demony. She still got to his side faster than he’d expected, yanking him backward out of the way of the crumpled harp before she even looked at the poor thing. Then she froze, abruptly, the back of Hedwyn’s cloak still gripped tightly in her fingers

He pulled forward out of her grip, back toward the girl. “She needs help.”

The stunned silence behind him was answer enough, and he shrugged off the moment, carefully not thinking about Jodi and harps and all the history that meant thinking about. He had bigger worries, just now, and so did this girl.

He pulled a dagger from his belt and began to cut loose the muzzle, not bothering to find whatever buckles were tangled in her filthy, mud-caked hair. She whimpered as the knife drew closer to her, flinching and turning her face into the ground so that he almost couldn’t get at a spot with enough space to get his knife under the straps.

“Hey, it’s ok,” he said, “I’m gonna help you. It’s ok. Turn your face toward me.”

She complied, but her eyes were wide and scared, her breath coming fast and shallow through her nose.

“You’re alright,” he murmured again, “I’ve got you. I’m gonna take care of you.”

As he pulled the muzzle away from her face, she began gasping for breath, taking in air in huge gulps that made him worry she might hyperventilate. He couldn’t say how long she’d been forced to wear the muzzle, but there were stark lines where the leather had cut into her face. He felt rage begin to burn somewhere at the base of his rib cage, filling his chest and weighing hot and heavy on his stomach.

“See,” he said, keeping his voice as level and kind as he could with the rage building inside him, “You’re alright.”

Rukey had climbed halfway up his back to get a better look, peering over his shoulder, and the cur’s voice was heavy with anger as he whispered, “Brother, I think you’d better take another look at her mouth. I think they cut out her tongue. We’re not going to get any answers.”

Hedwyn’s nostrils flared instinctively, his own breathing growing heavier in spite of himself as he anger in his gut burned hotter.

“Jodi, I need some of the spare raiments out of the blackwagon. For now just something big and soft we can wrap her whole body in. Maybe the ones for a Sap. I don’t think any of our blankets are as clean.”

He didn’t usually give direct orders to Jodi like this, didn’t usually have the right, when she’d taken him in all those years ago and fed and clothed him through his teens, but this was - she’d never understood him and Fikani. She’d never blamed him, but she’d never understood, really, and if she was frozen now - if she was frozen now, he had the moral high ground and the Scribes damn it all - “She needs clothes,” he said, pushing what wasn’t an order with the force of an order.

“She needs more than clothes,” Jodi answered, her voice crackling with an anger of its own that he found reassuring. “I’ll get the whole wagon. Even if I have to push it myself.” He knew the difference between Jodi angry at him and Jodi angry at someone else, and this was Jodi as angry as he’d heard her in a good long while, and not at anyone in the vicinity. He breathed a sigh of relief as her heavy, demonic footsteps stomped off, hurried and furious.

“I’ll get some supplies while she’s doing that,” Rukey said, “It’ll be quicker. Don’t know how far even she can push it across all this.”

“Far enough,” Jodi shouted back, and Hedwyn felt momentarily guilty for the relieved sigh. Apparently, she was still listening.

Even so, having the others share his rage was reassuring. They were committed, now, or they would be when all was said and done. He still needed to keep their rage from the girl. She wouldn’t understand. Hedwyn took a deep breath to calm himself before he spoke to her again.

By the time he’d collected himself and his companions’ footsteps had receded, the harp had twisted her bound form into a new position, tucking her legs under her body and bending forward to press her forehead to the ground in front of him, bowing as deeply as she could go.

He leapt to his feet, moving before he could think too hard about what that kind of visible subservience might mean because he couldn’t afford to think too hard about what that kind of subservience might mean. It was easier releasing her wings than her face, the buckles large and obvious, even among the filthy, dirt-crusted feathers. The color he could see through the muck suggested green, though he wouldn’t know how similar a green to Fikani’s until the girl was clean, an undertaking in itself out here.

At least her hair seemed to be red, which was different from Fikani’s. Thinking too much about the woman he’d left behind wouldn’t do much good to anyone.

The girl’s wings twitched, like she wanted to stretch them out, but she didn’t move, except for the shaking that continued, even more obvious now that more of her feathers were free to rustle with the movement.

“Easy,” he said gently, reaching for her shoulders and touching her only after her little flinch didn’t turn into fully pulling away from him, “Easy. I’m just gonna help you sit up. It’s ok. Can you cover yourself with your wings, or are they too stiff from being held back like that?“

He was still behind her, carefully keeping his eyes away from anywhere he didn’t think she would want to be looked at, and as her wings started to move sluggishly, she made a half-stifled little noise of pain at just the right moment to cover his shocked intake of breath.

Once her wings had begun to stretch out, all kinds of things became clearer. For one, he hadn’t been wrong - one wing was considerably shorter than the other, the end not trimmed at the feathers but cut away entirely, a piece missing, bones and all. For another, the missing feathers took on a whole new cast now that he could see properly. Her back was a mess of whip marks, old scars and new lacerations, and the damage extended to the nearest part of her wings, chunks of feathers ripped loose by the same beatings. There were other patches where it looked like the feathers had been ripped out on purpose, haphazardly and for no compelling reason he could think of.

She cried out again as she tried to move them farther and he shouted wordlessly to stop her, reaching out to touch her shoulder again. “Ah! No, if it hurts, then don’t -”

She wailed the moment his hand brushed her, tucking herself forward again and pressing her forehead into the dirt, her wings spread across the ground and her back open to him. Her breath came fast and ragged again, this time half-filled with sobs.

Footsteps behind him meant Rukey wasn’t trying to be quiet. It was just as well.

“What did you do?” the cur demanded, letting go of the basin filled with bandages and extra robes that he’d dragged here.

“Nothing!” he protested, “Nothing, I - I don’t know what’s happening!”

Rukey cursed, studying the prone form in front of them. “Then what did you say?”

“Nothing!”

Rukey padded forward, coming up beside the girl and putting his head down to look at her face. “Hey there, sister. I don’t know what this big idiot said, but nothing’s going to happen to you, alright? I’m not usually the taking-in type, but my chums here know a thing or two about taking care of people, alright. And whoever did this to you can’t get to you when you’re with us. You can trust old Rukey on that.”

Neither the shaking nor the sobbing stopped, but they lessened, and she managed a pathetic little nod into the ground, still gulping in air like she couldn’t breathe. A knot that had twisted itself into Hedwyn’s stomach eased, but the rage kept simmering.

“I’m guessing we don’t have enough water to clean her up right now?” he asked Rukey.

“Not so much, chum. Not out here, anyway. Jodi says we can do more once she’s inside, but you and I both know we’re gonna have to find real water before too long. We’ve probably got enough to clean those whip weals, but the rest - not so much.”

Hedwyn nodded. He reached toward the girl, then stopped. He wanted to comfort her, but didn’t want to make things worse. But then he remembered her feet had been bound, before she tucked them underneath herself, and that was at least a concern he could actually address.

He knelt down next to her again, putting a hand on her shoulder as gently as he could in the hope that if nothing else, it would prove he wasn’t actively trying to hurt her. “Your feet are still tied together, aren’t they, friend? Let me fix that, and then we’ll - we’ll get you all wrapped up and we can leave you alone and worry about everything else when you’re ready. Ok?”

The body beside him continued to tremble, but she moved slowly, tentatively, shifting her weight and then rolling onto her side, curling into a ball again, this time partially shielded by what was unfortunately her shorter wing, and slid her feet closer to him.

He cut the ropes, noting, as he did, that her talons were broken off at uneven lengths but seemed to have been filed down from there, leaving them without sharp points or jagged edges. Her toes had strange callouses in places they probably shouldn’t, but he wouldn’t know what any of that meant for her until she was strong enough to walk, so for now he simply catalogued it in his mind and tried to move on.

One look at Rukey proved he didn’t know what to do any more than Hedwyn did. The girl’s sobs had gradually subsided as she calmed down from - from whatever. Had he just startled her? Now that she was curled in on herself again, they had been reduced to quiet sniffles she seemed to be trying to stifle.

“Hey,” he said, softly, resisting the urge to touch her shoulder again and hoping his tone would tell her he meant to be talking to her and not the four-footed menace who had turned to watch Jodi bring the wagon in instead of helping Hedwyn figure out - whatever it was he ought to be figuring out.

She didn’t respond, but he kept talking anyway, being careful to keep his voice calm and steady. “I don’t know what happened to you, or how you survived if they really cast you down here like that, but I do know not to turn my back on a miracle. Or a person in need. We’re gonna take care of you. I promise.”

She didn’t answer, but she did turn her face toward him, those big dark eyes studying him intently, this time. He forced himself not to flinch away or shrink back from her gaze. Even blunted by exhaustion and weakness, a harp’s gaze was nothing to scoff at.

“I know it seems - improbable,” he admitted. “But I -”

He didn’t know what to say, what part of his secret shame or secret pride to show her, what part of his own story he even regretted, anymore, if any of it.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” he finally concluded. “If you want, we can get you well and drop you off at - well, somewhere. But you’ll die if we leave you here, and we can’t - I can’t let that happen. Ok?”

She didn’t answer, but her eyes stayed locked into his, and when they flickered shut and her body sagged, relaxing fully into the dust, he took it as, if not agreement, then at least acceptance.

He let his own head sink down to his chest, slumping in the sudden freedom to let his walls down, but kept his ears out for Rukey and Jodi. They had a lot of work to do. It wasn’t the work they’d been looking for, unless this poor, mangled little thing could read, but he wasn’t going to refuse it. His fingers reached down instinctively to a pouch on his belt, where he gripped the small, smooth stone Fikani had given him, a talisman engraved on only one side with her initials, the one thing he’d been able to hide from the men who threw him down here.

He wondered if she might take comfort from it, might recognize it as Harp in some way, but then he let go of it, keeping it selfishly to himself as he always did, hidden as carefully away as his heart.