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unholycringebirther · 1 year

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HARPY!CLAUDE MERLE X VIOLINA [FANFICTION]

SUMMARY: While gathering berries, Vio gets lured deeper into the forest, meeting a distant, gruff stranger who is in desperate need for assistance, even if he won’t admit.

WARNING: mentions of blood/injuries, swearing, animal hunting, no beta we die like Ophelia. MINORS DNI

WORDS: 3.9k

A/N: I AM CRINGE BUT I AM FREE I AM CRINGE BUT—

Okay okay but all jokes aside it’s currently one am where I live and i’ve decided to reveal myself as a simp, I’ll probably regret it tomorrow but whatever, im a huge nerd for Greek mythology so the harpy idea really spoke to me (Sirens are still my favourite so maybe I’ll write for siren!Jules later) and after a few hours I made this monstrosity, enjoy ❤️

As the spring goddess rose from the underworld, the sun followed suit, melting away the harsh coldness of the winter until fresh flowers perked up in their bloom, animals awakening and trees sprouting fresh green leaves.

Demeters tears dried— her beloved daughter returning to her arms once again, ending the starvation of the crops and the fertility of the soil.

The forest surrounding me was relaxed, the nymphs and dryads settling into their trees as the sunset painted a soft golden light over their oaks, it was calm, a comfortable hum of silence.

It was a nice change of pace— the village has been getting rowdy, one of the many hunters had come barreling into the streets, claiming he’d almost caught an unheard of beast.

The man was always one for stories, but the passion in his voice hooked many of the other hunters into believing him, he told us of a beast as dark as the night sky, claws sharper than any werewolf he’d ever seen, piercing eyes as black as coal.

He didn’t catch it, but triumphantly held up a bloodied dagger, claiming he’d landed enough damage to cripple the thing, prompting everybody to start wild searches, wanting a sweet taste of the glory that catching a large, dangerous creature brought.

It was a load of bullshit, I’ll say, he’s always been one to boast despite various failed attempts at catching creatures even as feeble as a jackalope.

The forest was fruitful, in both the berries I was currently gathering and in mythical creatures of all kinds, but despite that I still doubted somebody like him discovered a supposed legend, a man covered in feathers and ash, with wings wider than the stretch of the trees.

For that exact reason, I was warned against coming here, the elders chastising me as I stepped out my front door, basket in hand, my parents following suit with jabs of their own.

But I desperately needed a break, as the sun melted down into the horizon, lanterns flickered on, and no doubt the town was plagued with cheers of celebration as corpses were wheeled in, taverns opening with hunters celebrating their latest bloodshed.

I didn’t want to return just yet, the tranquil nature of the forest drawing me in further, it was alive in a way not many others were, the trees and air shifting in ways human emotion would.

Part of me was a little ashamed, but I wasn’t perceived as a threat, hunters would often get shunned by the forest, roots and branches shifting until they were caught in a dark labyrinth, the nature surrounding me taking a more active role in protecting itself and the wildlife that inhabits it.

But to me, the bark opens itself up, beckoning me deeper instead of pushing me away, I wasn’t here to hunt— the forest had no need to defend itself, and a kindle of pride blossomed in my chest at the idea of having left a good impression on the energy curling around the space.

I glanced to the left, a shadow passing over the deeper part, trees becoming more narrow as the human affect ends where the wilted dirt path does.

The berry bush in-front of me is plucked empty, my basket only half full by the juicy dark beads inside, I didn’t want to leave just yet, the shouts of the villagers already making a headache build in my skull, and I could trust that the forest wouldn’t harm me.

I’ve been told countless times to not wander farther than the shabby dirt trail, but I already ignored the warnings of travelling even this far, and the forest wouldn’t let the feathery beast touch me, if it was even real.

The small rush of rebellion carried me forwards, into the thickened silence of the wild.

I could sense the shift around me as the human touch becomes sparser, the unbothered nature growling wildly, the trees curling above like claws tightening its grip.

Gods, I should’ve came here ages ago, I thought to myself in stunned awe, their was various kinds of bushes, different berries littering each one in plenty, fresh and ripe for picking, Thank you, lady Demeter.

I gathered various kinds until my basket was brimming, and I was surprised the sweet smell wafting around didn’t attract the nose of any critter, but glad nonetheless, this’ll do me and my parents well.

We were far from the richest in the village— we had enough to keep ourselves going, but we didn’t have anything left to tuck away in case of an emergency, and as the years pass and my folks grew older, the likely-hood grew like a thriving vine in the midst of spring.

If we can cut food costs with my foraging, well, a little extra savings never hurt anyone, meat of all kinds were plentiful and quite cheap, in abundance from the animals crawling around, but fruits and berries were spiking high in costs as the energy shifted towards hunting this elusive beast and supplies ran short.

My basket was full, colours mixing and merging together as I try to make room for more, but unfortunately, I’ve reached capacity.

The sun had set, shrouding the trees around me in darkness, there was a slight chill in the air that made me huddle more into myself to avoid the bite of the wind, it picked up surprisingly fast, unnaturally fast.

I wander forwards, I didn’t bother to keep track of where I was heading, the forest would shift me in the right direction, I just had to move and let the gentle caress of the branches lead me to safety.

The trees were a dark oak, the fresh leaves, sprouting to their full hue only days ago with the early spring, they were pushed together closely, concealing anything far from view.

Roots stuck wildly out of the ground, leaves and muddied grass from the morning sprinkle hiding them, and the only reason I didn’t trip over a root when the sound of a low grumble reached my ears was the tree flattening the root in-front of my foot.

I paused, straining my ears to listen out, it was silent, the loud ring in my ears supplying evidence that it was nothing more than a trick of the rushing wind.

A twig cracked, like a heavy weight strained it to snapping, and I knew it wasn’t the breeze playing a trick on me, I didn’t immediately panic, chances were it was a lost hunter, the forest playing a game of cat and mouse until they learned their lesson.

I swore I heard the grumble of a man— soothing most worries about a stray, potentially dangerous creature sniffing around, but I still kept my footsteps light as I followed the sound, peeking past the many trees in a hopeful attempt to remain somewhat hidden incase my suspicions proved wrong.

There was an opening, a small clearing where the tight tree lines swerved, a circular view of the clear night sky, it was beautiful, colourful flowers and moss spreading across the rocks and logs resting on the grass.

The moon reached its highest point, bathing the clearing in a almost mesmerising silver glow, carefully highlighting each petal, every mushroom and each crevices carved onto the fallen log.

And the man covered in coal feathers, laying limply in the centre.

He was laying on his back, propped up by a particularly large rock, his hair was long, dark purple not unlike the berries I carry in my basket, dark charcoal feathers cover his body like clothing with sharp wings cradled closely to his chest.

My eyes trailed up from his chest to his face, grey skin glistening with sweat, black stains on his cheeks alluding towards the feather sticking out of his hair, darker greys and blacks smudged over his eyes like makeup.

His chest was heaving, those surprisingly appealing features twisting in pain, he grunted again, clearly in pain but keeping quiet no the less, his left wing cradled close to him, almost protectively.

I could see the issue almost im immediately, those sharp, dark feathers couldn’t hide the unnatural twist of the shape, I didn’t know a lot about bird physiologically— but I could clearly see the carpal part of the wing bent.

My heart ached sympathetically, no doubt it’d been the work of a hunter, probably out searching for that god damn beast that man supposedly crippled.

I wanted to help, I really did, but I wasn’t exactly sure what I could do, and I’ve been warned time and time again to keep away from unknown beasts, especially injured ones, not only could they hold a bias from the human that’d harmed them in the first place, pain could cause instincts to make the creature go wild.

But no matter what, I couldn’t see that with him, despite his features scrunched up in pain, those coal eyes held intelligence, far past a simple creature, and even some of the meat-heads running around the village.

It drew me in, those dark eyes holding depths I don’t think I’ve ever seen, I was naturally quite curious, but this was different, I wondered, wondered what this man had seen, what caused the exhausted wiseness that plagued his handsome features.

He drew me in like a whirlpool, but I couldn’t give in, despite the stab of need to assist him, I couldn’t risk it.

Stepping back, I intent on slipping back into the forest until I was further hidden by the tall dark trees, the cast of moonlight drawn away from me until I blended in with the cool, black night.

The crack of a stick underneath my shoes booms throughout the silence, and I can see the tenseness that lines the muscles underneath his feathers at the noise, it feels like my heart stops before jumping into my throat.

I can almost hear the nymphs snickering from inside their tree-trunks, the assholes.

“Who’s there?!” He calls out, his voice is rough with pain, like worn black leather, but carries a deep smoothness like espresso, dark as a splatter of ink against parchment paper.

I don’t move a muscle, frozen as a marble statue, whilst I am covered in a blanket of darkness, I can still see him bathed and highlighted in lady Selene’s moonlight, his body is tense and those entrancing eyes darken in something akin to predatory anger.

“I already heard you.” He calls out again, sounding tired and much older than he appears to be, he’s clearly had a long night, not looking too different to my father coming home from an unsuccessful hunt, “Come out, now.”

With a deep inhale, I try to steel myself until I can smother the fear on my face, I’m not sure how well I’m doing but hopefully, it’s enough, running might only make things worse.

Stepping into the clearing, hesitantly, I let the moon brighten my features until he can fully take me in, I’m careful to keep my body open and unthreatening, this doesn’t have to end in a fight, but it might if I trigger any feral survivor instincts.

His eyes scammed up my body, similar in the way I did to him only moments ago, and I have to shove down an inappropriate feeling of warmth that lingers where his eyes trail, definitely isn’t the time for that.

The tense line of his body seems to slacken slightly, the darkness of somebody ready to shed blood fading until he just looks tired, and perhaps even slightly relieved albeit still defensive.

I’m glad he doesn’t want to kill me anymore, but part of me is kind of offended.

“Er, hey there.” I wince slightly as it slips from my mouth, his eyes are unblinking as they stare at me, it feels like he could predict my every move before I’ve even figured them out for myself, “D-Do you, uh, want some help there?”

“No.” His answer is short and curt, and I consider making a break for it, realising he doesn’t seem likely to chase me down and rip my throat out with those sharp claws, but when I linger for a moment, I can vaguely make out the signs of dried blood.

This guy clearly needed help, even if he didn’t want nor think he needed it, and I can’t just leave him here because he chose to wake up stubborn.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” I slowly reach out a hand, approaching slowly, making sure he can see every movement, but it wasn’t enough to stop the way he tensed, those sharp fangs barring slightly.

“I don’t want you fucking help.” he snapped at me, hostility evident in the way his wings tried to spread out, before fluttering and wrapping back around himself, a hiss of pain escaping his lips at the movement, “leave me alone!”

Both concern and irritation rose in me, I scratched the flight instinct, I could leave this man alone despite his insistence, he needed assistance and I didn’t want to even think about what could happen if I chose to leave.

“Listen, guy— what’s your name?” I started, and the blank stare of annoyance he gave me told me he wasn’t planning on telling me anytime soon, and my own ire flares in response.

Fine, we’ll play it like that. I thought to myself as I took a deep, calming breath of the wind, I can be just as stubborn as you are, believe me.

“You can’t fly, your wing is broken and I can see a large cut on the inner base, yes, right there.” I start, slowly inching closer when he doesn’t lunge for me, which is always a good sign, my hand outstretches again, “You’re grounded right now, and you need some help to get back in the air, trust me, the hunters are rowdier than normal currently.”

He raises a thick eyebrow at that, and strangely I find myself liking the curiosity that leaks into those irises.

“So, you can either let me help you, and save yourself a hell of pain,” I pause right in-front of him and gaze deep into his eyes, I’ll allow him a choice, I can’t force my help onto anybody, “or you can sit here and get your bloodied corpse dragged back to my village because you wanted to be tough.”

He grits his teeth, and I can see him chewing the option over in his mind, I can read the exact moment he steels himself and makes his decision, turning his head away from mine in a huff, “..fine.”

With an internal cheer of success, I finally crouch down to survey the damage, with the moon shifting towards the horizon it means I have to be fast before my light source completely dissipates.

I was correct, there is a large cut on the bony base of his wing, blood has dried and crusted around it, stemming the worst of the bleeding, but if I don’t clean it now there is a large chance that it’ll get infected later.

Biting my lip, I try to think of something I could use to clean it, I have nothing on my me but the basket discarded on the ground.

“There’s a stream nearby, I can hear it.” He pipes up, and I’m not quite sure if his tone is actually bored, or if that’s how he sounds, a constant note of monotone, “if we go there— I can clean off in the water.”

I couldn’t hear anything, but I didn’t doubt he could, it wasn’t uncommon for the creatures of this forest possessing qualities humans didn’t such as enhanced senses, and I briefly wonder how he didn’t hear me before the loud snap.

“Then that’s where we’ll go.” I rise to my feet, and wince apologetically at him, “sorry, you’ll have to come with me, I don’t have a bucket or anything to carry the water back.”

“It’s fine.” His tone is still curt, all business, and without a second thought I reach out my hand to help him up, but he waves it away with a low grumble, swiftly turning into a huff of exertion as he shakily rises to his own feet.

He clearly had something against accepting help, im surprised I convinced him to even let me clean his wounds.

Despite his less-than expressive face, I could see the discomfort in the stiff way he moves, he was clearly in pain, but refused my attempts to assist him walk better by outstretching an arm.

Its a short walk to the small stream, its almost as tightly clenched as the trees surrounding us, but the man doesn’t hesitate to crumble in-front of it, finally resting his sore body, and reaching for the moving water.

“Hey!” I call out before quickly sliding up next to him, dropping to my knees despite the stain of grass on my white dress, he looks at me, his gaze tempered with annoyance and confusion, “Let me do it for you, I’ll be able to reach better.”

I can tell he wants to protest, to decline me like he did before, but the sting of his wound chips away at his resolve, and when he turns his head away from me and bares the large cut, I know I’ve worn him down.

With a hum of approval, I reach down, ripping a line off the red fabric layered onto my dress, draping it into the water until it collects enough moisture.

It wasn’t a massive deal, my mother was a seamstress, we had an abundance of linen and cotton materials, and she took it upon herself to teach me how to hand-sew almost anything when I was still very small.

I try to be as gentle as possible, but he gasps and jerks when I make contact with the raw parts of the cut, trying desperately to clean up the build of dirt and blood, justifying it to myself that an infection would hurt much much more.

“So,” conversation might he a good means of distraction, there was still a lot to go and I didn’t necessarily want to sit in this tense silence, “will you tell me your name now?”

I could practically hear him gritting his teeth, he stayed silent, surprisingly not making much noise for how much pain I know for a fact he’s in, even before, he’s been awfully silent about his discomfort.

With a sigh, I realise I’m going to be the one doing most of the talking in this one-sided conversation, “well, my name’s Violina, yes, like the instrument.”

I despised my name— I didn’t even know how to play the damn instrument, and I refused to learn out of pure irony, I used to be jealous of the other girls in my village, their parents gifting them gorgeous titles.

He still doesn’t speak a word, so I continue on as I finally push through the worst of the grime, “I don’t know why I was named after a stringed instrument, I don’t even know if either of my parents play the damn thing,”

The dark red and browns clinging to his feathers wash off to leave behind a raw pink line, reaching down, I rip off a larger piece of fabric and wrap if tightly around the line until it was covered,

“…That’s a nice name.” It rumbles out of him, and im taken aback, not just by his sudden vocalisation, but by the compliment itself, and I can feel a flush rise in my cheeks.

“A-Ah, thanks.” I cough, trying to force it back down, standing up, I try to offer him another hand, and this time, he takes it, those sharp claws wrapping around my skin, but somehow, I don’t feel a prick of fear, “Stay off that wing, alright?”

He seemed a tad more relaxed, tension still radiated from his large figure, but most of it seemed to come from the displeasure of jostling his injures and not him perceiving me as a threat.

“I’ll have to clean and wrap it again tomorrow,” I explain, I was no medic but I knew enough to at least be somewhat confident in what I was talking about, “Come back here, same place and time.”

He snarled slightly at the idea, and I raised a confused eyebrow of my own, failing to see how what I said could’ve caused him to raise his hackles, “No.”

“What, why?” I question him immediately, and he stares down at me mistrustfully, his nose scrunched up in obvious displeasure, it seemed to be one of his base emotions next to irritation, “If you want to get better, I need to keep up with the treatment, guy.”

“No.” “You sure have a wide vocabulary, don’t you?”

I was tired, the moon was waning from the sky and I’d been running around almost all night, I couldn’t handle anymore of this, so I didn’t try to stop him when he turned away from me.

His wings curled more comfortably against his back, almost sheathing themselves, they were wide enough to almost completely conceal him from the back, but I could see a hint of his face when he turned back slightly.

“..Thank you, Violina.” he almost choked it out, it was clearly a foreign sentence on his tongue, and judging by the note of loathing I could hear in his voice, he didn’t like it one bit.

That brings a small, lopsided smirk to my face, and I call back in a much brighter, louder voice than his small little mumble of a grumble, “No problem.”

He took off, and I couldn’t help but stand there and watch as the darkness of the wild swallowed him up, the forest bending in his path.

I rub my temples, a headache building from not only the lack of sleep, but the loud shouts of almost everybody in the village, question and demanding to know where I’ve been all night.

It was a relief to finally be let off the hook, after hours of chastising from my parents alone, basking in sweet silence is a luxury I’ll never take for granted.

My eyes close, and I take in a deep breath, my thoughts wandering back to the man I saw in the forest, those dark feathers, those wings, the dark way his eyes drank me in.

Even during my painful lecture, my thoughts seemed to drift to him often, and in the back of my mind, I wondered if he was thinking about me as well.

I heard a rush of wind from outside, loud enough to make me jump out of my skin, knocking me from my thoughts about the purple haired man, and I quickly smooth out my dress before making way to the front door.

I open it, to be greeted by nothing except a empty doorway, I glance around for a stunned moment before a sweet smell wafts up to my nose, and I look down.

Its my basket, still holding all those delicious berries I’d gathered, and accompanying the fresh beads were an abundance of fruit, fresh in a way that implies it had only reached peak ripeness merely hours before, and the white parchment note placed on-top stands out against the bright colours.

You left your basket behind, mon oiseau oublieux.

-Claude Merle

I know my art isn’t amazing— it’s far from it but I just wanted to see my favourite little hoe in some Ancient Greek drip ok sue me, plus a little bonus of Claude about to murder my self-inserts ass for looking (respectfully of course) at his lovebird.

This post is a mess istg

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