"Alright, careful there. She's a little feisty this one." One of Meira's lead crewmen called out as they checked the undercarriage and wheels of one of the many carriages during one of their soon to be a dozen pitstops on their trip back to Alder.
Around him was a flurry of men and several women, each busy with their own thing, cleaning, hammering and locking down the cages so the over half-dozen holstaurs and singular harpy. Hay was thrown into the back by one of the younger kids, a boy barely past his teens who would constantly flush with every coy moo of the holstaurs as he spread the hay bedding across their enclosure. They never quite reached for him, something Noah hoped was merely because they weren't interested in someone so young… part told him that there were just too many people around that would stop them if they did try something like that.
At one of the cages, Noah peered in through its tough iron bars and towards the huddled ball of brown feathers at the centre. It didn't have a face, entirely because it was hiding within its large feathery wings making no noise. He guided his gaze over those wings, searching for wherever she'd had her flight feathers snipped but couldn't see them. He chewed his cheek, he understood why they did it, to stop her from flying away as simple as that. But still, it left a sour taste in his mouth.
With a sigh he glanced over his shoulder, seeing that no one was giving him any particular attention, he then focused on the book in his hands. His almanac, at least, one of them, and began flipping through it. Each page was a new species, a new concept, a new thing to learn about this world, its culture, its creatures, its history… too much for a single day.
His attention laid in the illustrations and the names, 'slobber dragon… no. Goblins… also no… Harpies, where are the harpies?' his foot began to rapidly tap as he came near halfway through the book. There had been some harpies, black-winged ones and ones with colours like parakeet but none like the one before him… no, that's not right. There had been one, the simple brown Morean harpy, native to mountains, plains, and forests, known for their light to dark brown feathers and relatively modest sizing. They would have been perfect were it not for that single imperfection he noticed here and there.
Whenever she would lift her head to peer around, pleading for the bars to dissipate and for freedom to return, or for when she forced herself to eat, he would notice something in her eyes. A little red ring, it was thin, shockingly so. No wonder everyone had missed it, but he hadn't. It was there, clear as day. How he saw it, he didn't know.
Whenever he thought about that, his hand would unconsciously gravitate over his shoulder to where that mark of Demetria and Typhania was engraved into his skin. It wasn't just a mark of his heritage as an otherworlder, there was something else to it. Whatever that is, he had yet to figure it out. 'Something related to the monsters? Or is it ranching?' it could go either way, the tattoo was a blend of two deities, one of monsters, the other of agriculture. Was it the monster part that gave him that hint that she isn't what she seems? Or is it the farming part telling him there's something more than just eggs and feathers that could come from this one?
He couldn't tell, how could he? His time had denied him the tried and true system interface popularized in web novels and the like. He was thoughtfully left to figure things out on his own.
With a heaving, tired sigh, Noah flipped onto one more page. His eyes aching from reading those small words while the setting sun shaded the ink words into splotches. His focus was dwindling as his stomach began to grumble with the rising sent of stew in the distance. They were too far from a tavern to have a meal, so everything was being made on hand. Meira hadn't skimped out on the ingredients either, the meals over the passing two days had been regal for what surmounted to roadside sustenance.
Another page, another pinch of his eyes. He looked to the harpy then back down, she hadn't moved. Then another page flipped, and another, then a third, a fifth, a tenth, a twelfth. Each unsuccessful avian creature was met with a tired sigh, the colours were wrong, no, not with four legs, only two. She doesn't have horns, just hair and no, she's not a Quetzalcoatl, she's not even a snake, or a lamia or whatnot.
By the last baker's dozen of pages, Noah was ready to give up, so she wasn't in this book. He had another two back at the farmstead to check out, they could give him more answers. One of them must otherwise he wouldn't have even thought of that oddness to her eyes as anything else than the uniqueness of her birth… or hatching as the almanac had been so inclined as to inform him.
When the final page flipped shut, so too did the book. Noah gripped its spine and dropped his hand, casting his vision back to the harpy one final time as he swept his hand through his hair. It was neater than before, albeit a little short for his liking. Meira had had enough with his unkemptness and stole some sheers used to cut the rope and subsequently began chopping his hair off piece by piece. Liora had thankfully come in to stop her before he went bald. By then the damage had been done, so she did what she could to fix it.
Surprisingly, Liora was a decent hairstylist, if cutting it shorter counted as hairstyling. The conversation while it was happening ended up with her mentioning how Harv prefered his hair short and his beard sculpted and how she was the resident hair trimmer when her husband was alive and her daughter lived at home.
In Noah's case, the beard had disappeared entirely. With help from one of the men sacrificing their razors—one of those old straight edge ones—to him, well, Liora, and let her finally fix up his haggard appearance.
It was odd, anticlimactic even. The girls had looked at him with prideful nods, albeit Caina was blinking confusedly at him while muttering under her breath, 'Shit, he actually looks good.' While trying to deny that they still had something to do together once they returned to the farm.
Noah trailed his hand down his cheek, felt the slight stubble poking through his skin. Hair always did that, sheer it flat and it's back the next day. It wasn't a horrible feeling but his skin was itchy and a pimple had risen on the back of his jaw, cutting that with another sweep of the razor was bound to leave him pumping blood for the following hour.
His tapping foot stilled, turning to chewing of his lip. This harpy was bothering him. He knew what it was, just not what it was, as idiotic as the notion sounded. She was a question mark harpy, a frustrating existence, an unknown he wanted to know.
Another exhausted sigh escaped him and he shook his head. With a pivoting turn, he glanced across the field they were settling in, tents and cots for the crew to sleep while firestacks kept the flame fearing nocturnals at bay. He found the girls, Liora and Caina settled by one of the fires. One each of their laps a wood plank and in their hand's knives, they were joined by two more girls, a mother and daughter from the looks of their similarities and ages.
The mother Noah had heard was there to assist with the men's 'frustrations' while the daughter was there because she couldn't be left home alone as her father was long since gone to the war. Not dead, from what they said about his letters, just not there.
Another sweeping glance and he found Meira, she was at the carpenter's wood-filled carriage. His name was Quil Vestiere, supposedly a master carpenter though what master would work for pennies, Noah didn't know. He could see Meira's head bobbing as Quil chattered on about some drawings he'd laid out on the hatch of his tool filled carriage.
'Should probably see what's going on there,' Noah thought. The man was there to build barns and whatnot for him, knowing exactly what was bound to be essential for any menial repairs he'd undoubtedly have to undertake in the coming days.
With a self-assuring nod, Noah lifted his legs and began to walk. Slow, lumbering, pausing at the cages to peer in at the motherly and youngling holstaurs he was soon to be raising and… tending… to once old enough.
As he passed the final cage before the carpenters, Noah noticed something off about the three small girls. They were huddled together, eyes darting about, not focusing on him or any of the people around them, but on the forest. He quirked his brow and followed their gazes, seeing nothing but dusking darkness peering through those veritable titans.
'We're not alone, are we?' When are you ever alone in a forest? He'd quickly add. There's always something around the corner, hidden in the canopy. Just out of sight, watching, hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce or prance. He fell to the three once more and reached up to grab one of the bars. His motion drew one of their wandering, nervous gazes and he tried to reassure it with a soft smile and calming words. "It's okay. You're safe here."
When truly, he didn't know whether he was safe himself.