Rosemary was a normal little town somewhere in the Europian countryside near Mercadia. There was nothing special about it, just a pit stop between two cities and was of a reasonable size that one didn't regret being born there. For those who were born in Rosemary, there was just enough things to do that the younger generation didn't immediately leave town the minute they graduated college, unless they had to.
Even the monsters here were mild mannered and kind, not too aggressive in their amorous pursuits, preferring to go the Oriental route and charm their male targets instead of hunting them down like predators. Humans still outnumbered monsters in Rosemary, and you'd be hard pressed to find the more outgoing species like hellhounds and werewolves here. Still, sometimes if you were lucky enough, there was always that special individual who brought some life to the little town.
James was the lucky kid to have met that individual.
He was just brought to the local park by his mother, and smiled as he saw a bunch of children, humans and monsters, running around causing chaos wherever they went. Looking around, he noticed that his cat friend Miki wasn't there yet.
"Mom, where's Miki?" He asked.
"Her mother said that they might be running a bit late, but they'll be here soon." His mother said. One could never be sure with Cheshire cats, they were unpredictable in a way that made you feel twelve years older after dealing with them.
James frowned and looked around. He had only been here in Rosemary for a few months and hadn't really made friends with any of the other children aside from Chloe, who lived right next door to him. He didn't know any of the other kids that well outside of school to really have the courage to talk to them. Then he spotted someone else who looked as lonely as he felt.
It was a harpy, and a large one at that. She looked to be around 7 years old, two years older than he was, with short auburn hair that was tied into twin brains that framed her face, which sported some freckles. She had a large nose, thin lips, and deep blue eyes, but James' attention was caught by her large, dull white wings. She wore jean shorts that left her avian talons bare, though her claws looked less sharp than he thought they'd be.
"Mom, who's that?" James asked, pointing to the lonely harpy.
"That's...well, she's one of the orphans that go to your school. You know, the children I teach at the orphanage?" She said.
James looked at the lonely girl, who sat on a swing grumbling angrily. "So she doesn't have any parents?"
"No, dear."
That made James sad. He loved his mom and dad, and he couldn't imagine living without them. As his mom took a seat at one of the benches, James mustered up all the courage in his little body and walked toward the harpy.
"Hi."
The harpy looked up at the boy who suddenly started talking to her. He was a scrawny little human with nothing special about him save for his big eyes. The harpy scowled at him.
"What do you want?" She asked.
"Wanna play with me?" The boy asked eagerly.
She looked at him for a solid three minutes, wondering if she heard wrong. "Play? With you?"
"Yup." He smiled.
The harpy thought he was trying to trick her, but seeing those big brown eyes of his something told her this kid really wanted to play with her. Sighing, she decided to at least humor him before the other kids came and gave him a hard time.
"Okay, we can play."
"Sweet!" The boy grabbed her dull white wing and pulled her off the swing towards the sandbox. "I'm James!"
"...I'm Lily."
XXXXXX
James would later learn that the Harpy's name was Lily, no last name. She was an orphan whose egg was found in front of the orphanage on the edge of town, place in a little box encased in a warm blanket. She hatched a day later and the manager of the orphanage raised her along with the other girls there.
Lily was just one of the many little monster girls who lived at the orphanage designed to raise and care for monster children. Though she lived there all her life and wasn't the only harpy there, Lily was a bit of an outcast among the children for reasons out of her control, which James would soon learn.
Lily was known as the "ugly harpy" to the other monster girls. She had freckles all over her face that made it look like someone threw pepper onto her face, her body was slightly larger than the average harpy's slender form, there was a slight gap in her front teeth that the children would endlessly tease her about, and her wings were the dullest white a harpy could have and were also a bit large for a harpy too. The one good trait about her was her bright red hair. Everything about her seemed to go against what a harpy should be, and so the harpy children would tease her relentlessly for not being as slender or well-proportioned as them.
It didn't help Lily's already bad temper at all, and she would always end up covered in scratches from the other harpies' talons after fighting them off. She was self-conscious about her hair and wings, but she acted like she didn't care to appearances' sake. Still, a monster being called ugly is a serious insult that few adult women would dare say to each other, but children were known for hitting home with their insults one too many times. Lily never cried or sulked, however, she would just lash out like a bird of prey, fighting any monster that started something with her. Not even manticores were safe from her wrath, and they were strong little girls even in their preteens.
Despite the bad reputation Lily made for herself, James still considered her his friend. Since that day at the playground, he was always hanging by her side, urging her to play, read, or just do something with him. Lily would grunt and scowl in his face, but she never did anything to drive him off. She just tolerated him at best, not so eager to chase away the one kid that didn't treat her like an outcast.
Eventually, James' Cheshire friend Chloe soon entered their circle of friends, but their relationship was...complicated.
It soon came to the point where Lily couldn't imagine spending the day without James close by. He was her rock, her anchor, her friend. Neither of them knew just how much they would depend on each other in the years to come.
XXXXXX
"Ow! Be gentle!"
"You're not one to talk about being gentle." James scolded Lily as he tended to her wounds. He dabbed a cotton ball in some rubbing alcohol and pressed it to the cut on her cheek, making her hiss.
The two were in middle school now, and things started to change for them. James was becoming more aware of girls and the horrors of puberty, and Lily was going through the same thing, along with the increased teasing from her harpy companions at the orphanage. Her wings were still the same drab white that she had for her early childhood, but her body began to fill out, sporting curves and strong muscles along her arms and legs that harpies shouldn't have.
As you can expect, it'd lead to some altercations with the other members of her species, and Lily had the scars to show it. Lily had gained a new one on her right cheek after fighting off a bunch of sirens that made a pass at James.
"Don't scold me like that. Those bitches deserved it." She said defiantly. She hissed at another stinging throb in her cheek. "I said be gentle!" She yelled and smacked him with her wing.
"Seriously, you really need to stop fighting everyone who makes you mad." He said. "One of these days, you're going to get into a fight with a dragon and they'll completely demolish you."
"I can take 'em." Lily said stubbornly. "If I give up now, all those floozies will be all over you."
"We're thirteen, Lily, I'm still safe." James said.
"And what about that little Baphomet bitch that's been eying you lately?"
James had nothing for that, and Lily smirked victoriously. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from the big bad monsters. Everyone knows better than to fuck with me!"
"Language." James lightly scolded. "And I'm pretty sure you mean everyone but Chloe."
"Eh, Chloe's a nutty bitch like that." Lily shrugged.
"Language!"
"I don't care!"
XXXXXX
"Come on, come on..." The sound of branches breaking and a large body hitting the ground filled the forest clearing as someone gave a loud scream of rage. "Fuck!"
The red haired harpy Lily sat on her ass rubbing her aching tailbone while cursing up a storm. That was the fifth time she tried flying above her height limit, and the fifth time she crashed to the ground like a piece of wet paper weighed down by a rock. She glared at her unseemly wings, which were even larger this time, though she couldn't understand why.
"Why the hell are my wings so damn ugly?" Lily grumbled. "It's bad enough I have the biggest tits out of the flock, but now I have to deal with these stupid fucking chicken wings?"
Despite trying to ignore it, Lily was rather self-conscious about her wings. The other girls still called her the ugly harpy because of her unflattering facial features, curvier than normal body and large wings that seemed a bit disproportionate to the rest of her body. Harpies were supposed to be slender and flexible, but Lily was already starting to match her manticore classmates in the chest department, along with a plump lower body that drew gazes from all the boys deep in the throes of puberty at the moment.
"Lily?"
James pushed his way out of the bushes, covered in leaves that he brushed off himself as he approached his best friend. Lily glared at him, though he was hardly affected by her temper.
"How did you find me?" She asked.
"I followed your curses. You can hear them from here to Rosemary." James said. He looked up at the broken branches. "I take it your flight didn't go as planned?"
"I'm too heavy." Lily grumbled, glaring down at her growing breasts. "I'm heavier than the average harpy and I can't even fly that high. Don't even mention gliding."
"Well your wings look large enough to hold your weight." James pointed out."
"I still have my baby feathers, genius. They're useless to me at this point." She said and sighed, still sitting on the ground. "What good is a harpy that can't fly?"
James frowned, not liking seeing his friend like this. Walking up to her, he sat down on her left and played with one of the white feathers that fell off her wing. "We're almost done with middle school now. You ready for high school?"
"Shut up, James." Lily grumbled.
"Come on, we're both getting older and wiser now. Pretty soon, puberty will be like a bad dream, and then we can focus on other things." He said. "Like...the future."
"Don't you want to be some biologist or something?" She asked.
"Marine Monsterologist." He corrected her. "I want to be one of the first people to explore the deepest parts of the ocean for any new monster species we haven't made contact with. I mean, Shoggoth had to come from somewhere, right?"
"Good luck with that. You'll probably be snatched up by a mershark the second you dips your toes in the water." Lily grunted. "And what do you mean by "one of"? Don't you want to be the only one to make the discovery?"
"No, you're coming with me." He said in a matter of fact tone.
"What?!" Her cheeks went red at his sudden declaration and she smacked him over the head with her wing. "Don't say things like that!"
"Why not? We're friends, right? We've been together this long, so why not make history together?" He smiled.
"Dummy." Lily muttered.
It's funny at how long she and James were together. He was her only human friend, and one of her only friends overall, not counting that cheeky Cheshire bitch. He was that calming influence who kept her from doing really stupid stuff to assert her dominance and show that she was more than some ugly harpy who couldn't fly. He didn't care if she had worse flying skills than a cockatrice, only that she was just alive and well. Which was hard when she was fighting manticores with her claws.
Still, some part of her wanted him to see her fly for the first time. Not just glide along the ground, but actually fly like an eagle. She wanted to show him just how magnificent she was, and that she was the best monster friend he would ever have. Lily never told him this of course, but she had a feeling he knew why she was trying so hard.
"James?" Lily said after a few minutes of silence.
"Yeah?"
"...Why did you become friends with me, back at the playground?" She asked. "Was it because you just wanted someone to play with or...?"
"I did it because you were lonely." James replied, easily remembering his reasons for seeking Lily out as a child. "You looked sad and I thought you needed someone to be there for you. Like I have my parents and Chloe for me. I didn't really care that you were a flightless harpy. That was the last thing on my mind when I met you."
Lily looked at James with red cheeks and snorted, looking away to save some face. "Dummy."
She ignored the rising heat in her chest, and failed to notice her body heating up as well.
XXXXXX
When autumn came, so did their first year of high school. James and Lily remained friends with contrasting personalities, and together they met all kinds of new monster girls who had a bit of a polarizing effect on the two friends. Monsters were obviously attracted to James, but Lily's presence kept them at arm's length, though it has led to a few predictable fights between some of the rowdier ones.
This was also the time that Chloe's attitude towards James also changed.
Lily saw the signs a mile away. Chloe was a Cheshire Cat, and those feline bitches were very clingy when it came to finding their mate. Lily could see how Chloe's usual style of play became more physical, and her cheeks darkened whenever she was around James. Those "accidental" touches below the belt, or that incident where she blatantly took off her shirt and bra under the pretense of relieving herself of the lingering summer heat. If Lily had fists, she'd clock the smarmy little bitch on the spot.
And as it turned out, Chloe was of the same mind. Frustrated of Lily's constant interference in snagging James as a boyfriend, she called Lily out on her bullshit and the two girls had their little confrontation near the lake where James would study with Lily.
"I'm not an easy person to anger. It takes a lot to tick me off, but you're really getting on my nerves!" Chloe hissed.
"And you have a knack for pissing me off every single day." Lily retorted. "So today's a first for everyone."
The Cheshire Cat bristled, her hair standing on end as her agitation grew. "You're always sticking your flat nose where it doesn't belong. Stay out of my way and let me get James!"
"Like hell I will! James I choosing his own girlfriend by his own free will, not because some slut seduced him out of teenage desperation." Lily said.
"Why do you care? You've never shown any interest in dating him. There's literally no reason for you to keep interfering!" Chloe yelled.
"It's because I care about my friend's feelings. I care about whether or not his supposed best friend will completely scare him off by suddenly going to first base with him." She replied.
Chloe snorted. "Yeah, right. You're threatened by me, aren't you? You like James and you're defending him from all those other girls to have him all to yourself. I've seen the looks you give him when he's not looking!"
Lily sputtered, her cheeks turning red at the accusation. Granted, Chloe wasn't entirely wrong. James was starting to fill out rather well in some areas. "That's bullshit. I just believe that right now, James needs friends and not more monsters to hide from during a full moon."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night sister, just stay out of my way." Chloe said. "I'm the only one who deserves to be his girlfriend. I've known him the longest, I know him the best, and I'm the only girl he has eyes for."
"And if he doesn't want to be your boyfriend?" Lily asked. "What then? Are you gonna rape him on the spot like the good old days or just toss him aside like yesterday's trash?"
There was a gust of wind that made Lily blink her eyes a bit, but when she opened them, Chloe had vanished. A furry fist hit her in the back and made her stumble forward, though she regained her balance and spun around to glare at a fuming Chloe.
"You little bitch! Of course he'll choose me! I'm the only friend he needs." She said. "What, you think he'll choose you? I thought manticores were the big, dumb types, but apparently you're no different."
"At least I don't think of tearing off his pants every time I visit his house." Lily countered.
"At least I have something more to offer than being a useless harpy." Chloe sneered. "You're a joke. A harpy that can't fly with a body as chunky as yours? You have nothing to give him other than embarrassment at being associated with such a failure!"
Lily ruffled her feathers, making some fall off. "This coming from a cat with parlor tricks and an annoyingly clingy personality. I'm sure your parents must be proud of you."
"At least I have parents, you ugly, flightless, turkey!"
The insult was followed by a shout from Lily, who sprinted forward and headbutted Chloe in the stomach. She swung her wings to smack her in the face, but Chloe blipped out of existence and reappeared behind Lily, grabbing her around the waist and digging her claws into her back. Lily thrashed around and slammed Chloe into a tree. In response, Chloe kicked Lily in the chest and knocked her back.
Chloe pounced on the harpy and started throwing punches at her face when she heard someone call out to her.
"Chloe, Lily, stop!"
Chloe looked up and saw James running towards them. "James?"
Lily pushed Chloe off her and swung her leg, her talons leaving a deep cut in the girl's side that made her hiss and grab at the wound. Seeing red, Lily stood up and used her powerful leg muscles to push off the ground and leap at Chloe, her talons raised for what would be a very painful attack.
"Lily, no!" James yelled.
Lily's right leg was already in mid-slash when James pushed Chloe aside out of the path of her attack. Her eyes went wide as she saw her talons heading straight for his face.
There was a splash of red across the leaves under them. Silence followed. Then came the myriad of screams, one of them from James.
"James!"
XXXXXX
Freshman year of high school was a rough one for James and Lily. The two had grown apart over the past few months, mostly on Lily's part after wounded James' face. Chloe was rarely seen around James after the incident, most likely from the argument they had about the fight, and James spent a good portion of the school year with a thick bandage around his face. Lily couldn't bear to be near him after nearly mauling his face, and it seemed that the other monsters thought the same.
The taunts and jeers were more aggressive and hateful. Many thought she attacked James on purpose, even though he said that it was an accident. Things seemed to be spiraling out of control.
It only got worse when winter arrived. Harpies were known to molt with the changing of the seasons, something that became less common as they aged into adulthood. All of the harpies and related monsters in school were in the midst of getting new feathers as old ones fell out.
That didn't happen for Lily. She could tell the difference between her shedding feathers, and the molting the other bird monsters were going through. This wasn't molting. You should still be able to fly even when you molt, and this didn't happen to her.
At this point, it was just too much. Being ostracized by everyone at school, breaking up James and Chloe's long-standing friendship, giving her best friend, the only friend she had three big scars and nearly blinding him...she couldn't take it anymore. So she ran. She ran as fast and as far as she could, away from town, from the judgmental glares and sneers and jeers at her inability to be normal. If she left, it'd be better for everyone, especially James.
"Lily!"
"Shit." She growled. How'd he...well, of course he'd find her. She was hiding atop the same damn tree they always hung out at as children.
"Lily, I know you're up there!"
"Go away!" She shouted.
Down at the foot of the tree, James looked up at the branches and saw her body amidst the treetops despite it being dark out. Lily 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.
"Lily, I'm not leaving you to freeze to death in the tree." James said.
"Why are you even here? It's dangerous to be around me. All I do is cause trouble for you, and I won't keep putting you through that shit anymore!"
"That's my decision to label you as dangerous to me, not yours. You're hurting, Lily, and you need a friend right now. You need someone."
"No I don't!"
"Yes you do!" He yelled. Seeing her stunned into silence, James continued, "Lily, these scars were an accident. You didn't mean to hurt me, and I jumped headfirst into your attack. It was just bad luck all around, that's all. You're no rabid monster like the other girls say you are."
Lily bit her lip and looked down at James. Even in the dark she could see his tall form, and those wonderful eyes she secretly admired. The three clean scars that ran down the left side of his cheek to his jaw bone were the only imperfection on his well-shaped face. Her talons had cut deep into his skin, almost cutting to the bone, and he needed an extensive amount of healing spells applied to have it heal correctly. Even though he was healed, James would have to live with those scars for the rest of his life.
"Why even bother with me?" She asked, her shoulders slumping. "I can't fly, I'm not pretty and I nearly took your jaw off. Your and Chloe aren't friends anymore, and all the girls at school hate me. It's all too much stress for you to deal with, so why do you still care?"
"Because you're my friend, as I said. It's no different from that day I first met you." He smiled. "I saw you were lonely and I came to be your friend, so you didn't have to look so sad anymore. This is the same. You're sad and I want to help you, fighting or not."
Lily looked away for a bit before huffing at him. "You'll stay with me even after I hurt you?"
"Yes." He said earnestly.
"Me, the flightless harpy?"
"Yes, though I disagree with the flightless part."
She blinked down at him. "Huh?"
"There's something I wanted to tell you about your molting. See this?" He held up two feathers. Both of them were Lily's. "I one of them from your fight with Chloe, and another from last week when you tripped and fell."
"What the hell are you doing with me feathers? D-Don't just snatch them up without permission!"
James smiled at that fiery temper he fell in love with over the course of their friendship. "Sorry, but I had to confirm a theory of mine. You see, these feathers are the same, but one of them has a little difference that I overlooked. Can you see this one?"
Owing to her sharp eyes, Lily bent down and was able to see the feather James held up to her. It looked no different from the other one, drab white and a bit dirty.
"What about it?" She asked grumpily.
"It's red at the base, Lily. This was a new feather that had grown in, and it's different. The other ones I've studied were the same, and I don't think it's because of your hair color."
Lily was getting impatient, knowing that what he was revealing something that might change her life entirely.
"Your feathers are molting, that much is true, but not because the seasons are changing. The color of your feathers is going to change drastically from here on out. Your wings are molting into those of an adult." James revealed. "And what's even more insane...is that I don't think you're a pure-blooded harpy after all. You're another monster entirely!"
XXXXXX
Spring came and went with little incident, and as summer came, so did a hellish heat wave that put most of Rosemary's hellhound population into a coma. This heat wave came with an influx of monsters wearing skimpy clothing in an attempt to stay cool (and sexy), while still trying to snag a man as a mate. It worked multiple times, of course, and the town saw many new baby monster girls being born in the advent of summer.
James, clad in a thin shirt and light pants, sat against a tree reading a book under its shade. The breeze was cool, but still warm, and the sun shone down on the land in full force. He was covered in sweat, but he couldn't bring himself to move another inch after nearly suffering a heat stroke.
"James!"
James looked up to the sky and smiled. With the sun on her back, a beautiful young woman had descended to the ground before him, landing gracefully before running over to James and snatching him up in her warm wings. This freckled redhead grinned mischievously as she nuzzled his face lovingly.
"What'cha doin'?" Lily asked.
"Just trying to stay cool without suffering from a heat stroke." James replied, wrapping his arms around her slender waist. He felt his body react from having her plush chest pressed against him. "Not everyone has an immunity to heat like you do."
"Excuses, excuses." She laughed and rubbed her nose against his.
Lily's wings had drastically changed over the course of spring.
Once her feathers had completely fallen out, once it got warmer, Lily's body had quite literally exploded in a burst of flames that scared James half to death. The flames enveloped both him and Lily, though he wasn't burned. Lily had undergone a transformation into a monster that would put Rosemary on the map for monster enthusiasts and tourists all over the region. James' hypothesis about Lily not being a pure harpy, but a subspecies turned out to be correct all along.
Lily wasn't a harpy at all...she was a phoenix. A legendary species of monster, also referred to as the immortal bird. They are also a rare species of harpy. They were a species known for losing all of her feathers and then being reborn from adolescent into an adult in a fiery display that gave rise to the legends of their supposed death and rebirth cycle that many stories spoke of. No one suspected her of this because she was an orphan, and phoenixes had low birth rates compared to other monsters, so being able to find one was extremely uncommon.
Lily losing all her white feathers was normal for adolescent phoenix's growing up. It was the "death" of their old selves, and come the fall of the final feather, they'd be "reborn" into the beautiful woman they were meant to be. Lily's transformation was a surprise to everyone, and scientists from all over the country raced over to Rosemary to see the newly identified phoenix for themselves.
Her formerly dull white wings had become a bright crimson red, redder than even her hair, and emitted a mysterious power. They were mostly a bright red with an undertone of yellow and blue, further emphasizing Lily's beautiful vermillion coloration. If Lily focused enough, she could actually emit flames from her wings that didn't burn unless she willed them to. It made for quite a nightly display for those looking at the night sky.
Lily herself had also undergone a transformation. Gone was the awkward teen with large wings and a lanky frame. She was now a shapely young woman with a curvaceous build and lovely features that made her the most beautiful monster in Rosemary. Her wings no longer seemed unable to fit her body, for they were now strong enough to easily carry her through the air.
Once it was confirmed that she was a phoenix, Lily had gone from outcast to superstar almost overnight. The harpies suddenly envied and idolized her, boys wanted to date her, and other monsters were completely star struck by her beauty. Still, even with all this, Lily's relationship with Chloe was still sour, especially now that Lily was proven to be the better monster than her. James and Chloe were still on speaking terms, though, so that friendship wasn't completely lost.
As expected of Lily's sudden change and rise in status, every boy from middle school to college wanted to have her as a girlfriend, to court her like she was some fairy tale princess masquerading as a peasant girl. But Lily only had eyes for one boy. The boy who saw her as beautiful even before she was reborn.
The boy whom she gave her first phoenix feather to.
Lily's vermillion wings shined beautifully as sunlight touched them, and flames licked the tips of her feathers, rising from her body to coil around James as they shared a kiss under the afternoon sun. Their story was far from over, as it had only reached the end of their beginning. The young man and his phoenix still had their whole lives ahead of them, just waiting to be explored together.
And so ends the story of the ugly harpy, who turned out to be the most beautiful of them all.
