I've read and re-read the wonderful 2014 story
Wings Of Desire
by taiyakisoba so many times I've lost count. It's the singular best Nonhuman story I've found on Literotica, in fact one of my favorite stories of any category. This story is written as an homage and sequel to it.
To get the full experience, I urge you to read
Wings Of Desire
before reading this. Please note I requested taiyakisoba's endorsement to write this story, but never received a response. I'm moving forward simply because the
Wings Of Desire
narrative is just too good not to continue. Consider my story as fiction from a devoted fan.
As always, copious thanks are owed to AzureAsh for editing, RiverMaya for her inspiration, and my new mystery beta reader for his oversight.
++++++++++
"Harpies are real, and still among us."
My lecture students drew a collective breath as I unrolled an image of a winged semi-human, with large bare breasts, sharp teeth, arm-like appendages that supported feathered wings, muscular legs and sharp talons instead of toes on the raptor-like feet.
"I stand here before you and say with all confidence that the extinct species scientists have labeled
'harpus erectus'
is, in fact, still very much in existence, contrary to what the government wants us to believe. It is in the government's best interest to have us think that these magnificent female avians with human-like bodies are nothing more than fossils by now; if people knew that the harpies still descended from their mountain eyries regularly to snatch men for reproduction, they'd lose their minds! The government fears the panic that would be caused by..."
The classroom door opened, and a shy freshman boy came in. "I'm sorry to bother you Professor Strongel, but there's an urgent message for you." He handed me a note. "It's regarding an urgent family matter."
A few hours later, I reached my former home in the village of my boyhood. As I approached, the village priest came out the front door grim-faced, and reported, "Your mother wants no final confession, extreme unction or last rites. She only wishes to speak to you." He shook his head, and put his hand on my shoulder. "She's in God's hands now, my son."
I entered the small house that I'd once shared with my parents. My father Dunjed Strongel had been a blacksmith, but while he was tall, bearded and burly, I looked nothing like him. Instead, I was of below-average height and wiry. I kept myself clean-shaven, as any attempt I'd made to grow a beard always ended up looking more like a threadbare rabbit pelt.
Dunjed was quite put out at my mother's insistence that I be educated. Despite my non-muscular form, and my inability to lift his great hammer more than a few times without tiring, he wanted me to follow him into the blacksmith trade. Thankfully, it was not to be. Not long after I left to attend college, Dunjed had passed on from some apparent heart ailment.
He'd apparently been afflicted early in the morning as he started work. They'd found him that night bereft of life, slumped over his anvil with the unattended forge fire reduced to mere smoldering embers. The village went without a blacksmith for some time, but given my physical unsuitability for the trade, this was just as well. Better no blacksmith than a horribly unskilled one, I say.
Because my dear mother had held firm on her convictions, I was now a renowned Professor of Mystical Science at a prestigious college not far from my former village. Unlike my colleague Professor VanHelsing, who was singularly obsessed with vampires (get a couple of drinks in him at a party, he'd prattle on about them for hours), I myself specialized in a wide variety of mythical female creatures: sirens, banshees, jinniyya, succubi, mermaids, and my particular favorite, harpies.
I held the controversial position that three of these creatures - sirens, mermaids and harpies - were not mythical at all, but had actually existed. In the case of harpies, I was convinced they still did, much to the consternation of my fellow scientists at the National Science Academy. At the Academy's annual meeting, I'd heard the phrases 'charlatan' and 'huckster' bandied about as I walked by.
So convinced that harpies still lived among us, I'd done a great deal of field work in pursuit of harpy knowledge. I'd even gone so far as to discover and exhibit a harpy skeleton I'd recovered from a small cave high in the Erinyes mountains overlooking the college. It was on display in a glass case in the University Hall of Science; in an attempt to discredit me, some jealous colleagues went so far as to claim it was merely a conglomeration of stolen human and ostrich skeleton parts. But I knew the truth, oh yes. My specimen was very real, and I treated her bones with reverence as I reconstructed her form for display.
After entering the house, I went in and sat down on a wooden stool next to my mother's bed. She reached over and took my hand. "My time is short, Oned. I have much to say."
"I'm here, mother."
"Before I say anything else, I have to tell you how proud I am of your accomplishments. Your father would be, too."
I scoffed, "I know you loved him, mother, but Dunjed Strongel was never proud of me."
"It always saddened me that Dunjed never took to you, but he was my husband. He was not your father. A man named Tarkus Whitan was."
Had I not been sitting down, I would have collapsed to the floor at the shock of my mother's revelation. As long as I'd known her, she'd been a woman with very strong morals. Upright and pious, she'd made her penance each week and paid her tithe without fail. The local priest often used her as a role model for all the other women in the parish. She was telling me a secret she'd held for at least four decades!
"Heaven forgive me, but many years ago, I lived with Tarkus outside the village in a small cabin that your grandfather built. I shared a bed with Tarkus, although we were not married. At the time I was young, lovely, carefree, and quite the flirt, and when the village's new blacksmith Dunjed Strongel took a liking to me, I did not discourage his attentions. Whenever Tarkus was away working in the fields, Dunjed would come to call. Poor Tarkus was a sweet, loving man, but physically not very large. Dunjed, though, he was so rugged and muscular, I found my spirit and body craving him." Her cloudy eyes became very sad. "I was a damned fool."
I squeezed her hand in consolation, and she continued.
"One day Tarkus came home to find Dunjed and I laying together. He was furious at the betrayal, of course. Dunjed laughed and walked away, knowing quite well that there was nothing Tarkus could do to him physically. After Dunjed left, Tarkus began shouting at me, declaring me a horrible witch, which of course I was. Then I did the worst thing a woman could ever do to a man who loved her."
Tears began flowing down her face at the memory, and she blurted out, "I mocked him. I told Tarkus how much more of a man Dunjed was, and told him he could leave. And so he did. He turned and walked out of the cabin. I chased after him, continuing to mock him. My poor, sweet, loving Tarkus. He deserved so much better than me. I stopped just outside the door as he headed into the woods, shouting something hurtful at him one more time before slamming the door. That's when it happened; that's when I lost him forever. Four months later, I married Dunjed."
My mind was spinning. I said, "I had no idea you had another man before Dunjed. What happened to him?"
"A harpy took him. She swooped down, dug her infernal talons into his shoulders, and flew off with him. As soon as I'd slammed the door I started regretting my harsh words, when I heard Tarkus cry out in fear. I opened the door just in time to see her lifting him into the air. I screamed and grabbed my pitchfork to see if I could stop her, swinging it uselessly in the air." My mother's voice got very low.
"Harpies can laugh, you know. I heard her laughing as she flew away, joyously as if she'd defeated me, which she had. I'd driven Tarkus out, and she'd snatched him away before I could apologize and try to get him back." She lifted her hand to my cheek and stroked it. "You look so much like him. After you were born, every time I looked at you it was a reminder of my shame for letting him go."
At this point, I was suspicious that my mother had become delusional. I played along, just to humor her. "But how can you be sure Dunjed's not my father? I was born after you married him!"