Wings of East and North
Elizna's feathers gleamed as the dawn spilled across Uruk'herald. Golden shafts caught the white tips of her wings, shimmering like sunlight on riverwater. She was born to the jungles of the east—where light broke through endless canopy and beauty itself had become a weapon of survival. To shine was to command. To gleam was to endure.
Her people were singers, dancers of the air, weaving color and motion into both battle and courtship. She carried that grace in every glide, every silent beat of her wings.
Ajadressor was nothing like her. The mountain-born harpy's feathers were duller, streaked in ash-grey and deep brown. Not beautiful, but jagged— designed to vanish against the storm clouds that wreathed the harsh northern peaks. Where Elizna was melody, Ajadressor was thunder. Her people lived where prey was scarce and predators constant. To them, survival meant ferocity. It meant tearing before being torn.
They circled the summit together, two halves of an instinctive judgment: the golden beauty of the jungle and the scarred feral edge of the mountain.
The Walkling Who Climbs
Below, Vulhairi dragged himself higher. Dust and frost clung to his armor like leeches, dulling the steel to the color of ash. His breath rasped in shallow bursts, each exhale a ghost that vanished into the cold air. Blood darkened the torn skin of his palms where the stone had bitten deep, and his knees shook as if they might give with the next step. Yet he climbed.
Every movement was stripped of grace. He did not march. He did not charge. He endured.
From above, Elizna tilted her head, gold-ringed eyes narrowing in thought. The jungle had taught her to see beyond posture, beyond flesh, to the flame beneath. And in this walkling she saw it—not pride, not hunger for glory, but something heavier. A weight carried willingly, though it threatened to break him. He burns with purpose, she thought. Not the hollow fire of ambition… but the slow fire that outlives storms.
Ajadressor's wings snapped wide, the gust scattering grit down the path. Her mountain-born instincts cared little for fire or poetry. To her, bodies broke, wings tore, hearts failed. Purpose did not keep prey alive in the storm. Strength is tested by what comes after the climb, not the climb itself, her thought snarled across their bond. If he staggers now, how will he stand when war breaks upon him?
Yet for all her scorn, she did not look away. Could not. His persistence was a challenge in itself, hurled at the mountain and at them. He did not plead for wings to carry him. He did not curse the path. He simply climbed—alone, battered, unyielding.
And so both watched. One with wonder. One with suspicion. Neither turning from the question he became.
The Debate of Feathers
Their voices rose on the wind, in the language of wingbeats, trills, and sharpened breaths. To elvish ears it would be chaos. To them, it was judgment.
Elizna: He endures. That is a rare light. Ajadressor: Endurance is not enough. He must learn humility, or he will command us like beasts. Elizna: And if he does not? Ajadressor: Then he falls.
Between them stretched an unspoken memory: other mortals had tried. Commanders with steel but no spirit. Fanatics who saw only glory. All had failed.
But this one—bloodied, worn, still climbing—was different.
Instinct on the Wind
The plateau yawned below, broad and pale as bone, etched with markings older than memory. The air here was thin, sharper, flavored with stone and silence.
Ajadressor's feathers bristled. A scent clung to the wind—faint, but wrong. Not frost, not dust. Something heavier. Burned flesh. Blood turned bitter by sorcery.
She hissed low in her throat, the sound more storm than song. "War comes," her thought rasped across their bond. "It stirs beyond the sands. I feel it."
Elizna's golden eyes narrowed. She felt it too, though in a different way: a tremor in the currents, a rhythm beneath the silence. The world was turning, and the mortal climbing below was no stray soul. He was pulled into it, woven into some design greater than either wing or claw.
Not prophecy—instinct. The kind that all harpies knew: when storms gathered, when prey scattered, when change was coming.
They circled tighter above Vulhairi. His presence was the center of it. The wrongness in the air did not drive them away. It pressed them closer.
The Test of Presence
A sudden gust tore along the cliffside, sharp and wild. The path cracked beneath Vulhairi's boots, and the force dropped him to one knee. His breath came ragged, the frost of it torn away by the wind. He did not cry out. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself upright again.
Elizna descended first. Golden feathers flared in the sunlight as she circled close, each sweep of her wings shimmering like a cascade of molten dawn. She brushed against his shoulder, then along his cheek—deliberate, lingering, enough to draw his body's response. She felt it ripple through him: the quickened pulse, the momentary weakness, the awe. Mortals always faltered when touched by beauty. Many were consumed by it.
But this one—this battered walkling—did not crumble. He looked up, straight into her eyes. His breath shook, but his gaze held steady, focused not on her brilliance, not on desire, but on the climb, on the summit itself. He saw her. Acknowledged her. Yet did not lose himself in her.
Elizna's golden eyes narrowed. A soft thrill moved through her feathers. He sees, without surrender. That was rare. That was worthy.
The stone cracked beneath a new weight. Ajadressor had landed, her shadow devouring the path. Wings spread wide, talons gleaming, her presence struck like thunder. She hissed low, then shrieked, a sound that split the air like a storm tearing sky from earth. Her claws dug deep into the rock, blocking his path, her body a wall of menace.
Most mortals would break here—either cower, or draw their blade in desperate defiance. But Vulhairi did neither. He stood. His legs trembled, his lungs fought for air, blood darkened the cracks of his palms. But he did not step back. He did not lower his head. Nor did he raise his hand to strike.
He simply held his ground.
Ajadressor tilted her head, eyes narrowing to slits of burning yellow. His stillness was not weakness. It was refusal. Refusal to yield, refusal to dominate, refusal to be anything other than present. Her talons clicked once. Then again. A hunter's rhythm.
Finally, a short, sharp chirp left her throat. Judgment. Recognition.
Elizna answered with a low, clear note of her own. Agreement.
The test was finished.
Not approval. Not yet. But acknowledgment. This mortal had passed the first breath of the covenant.
The Covenant Begins
The wind settled. For the first time since the climb began, the summit path was quiet—save for the ragged draw of Vulhairi's breath.
Elizna tilted her head, gold-ringed eyes narrowing. He had resisted her shimmer, her brush of temptation. He had acknowledged her without falling to awe. He sees me, but does not worship. That restraint—rare among walklings—was strength.
Ajadressor loomed still, her wings stretched like stormfronts, talons gouging the stone where she had landed to bar his way. She had shrieked her challenge into his face, demanded either fear or fury. Yet the walkling had neither struck nor cowered. He had stood. Bruised, shaking, but unbroken. He stands when the storm screams. That earned not her trust, but her recognition—and in her world, that was the first step.
They exchanged a glance, a brief pulse of trills on the wind. Not harmony, not yet. But agreement.
Together, they drew back.
Vulhairi stood alone in the clearing of stone, the last of the climb behind him, the abyss yawning below. His armor was cracked, his skin torn, blood seeping into the dust. And yet, upright, he endured.
Above him, Elizna rose into the dawn, her golden feathers catching the first full blaze of light. Ajadressor followed, her storm-dark wings slicing the air like blades. They circled him, shadows crossing and weaving, two judgments bound into one verdict.
Not prey. Not master.
Chosen.
The mountain held its breath.
The climb was finished. The covenant had begun.
Judgement
Elizna hovered above, wings folded slightly against the wind, eyes narrowing. He burns with purpose, she thought. Not pride. Not dominance. Something older, something heavier. A fire forged in endurance, sharpened by trials few mortals—or harpies—could survive.
Ajadressor circled to the north, talons scraping against the jagged stone as the wind tore at her feathers. Her voice rippled through their shared bond, harsh and precise: Purpose does not keep flesh from breaking. Strength is tested after the climb, not during it.
The first day had been heat and dust, the sun baking the stones, forcing Vulhairi to seek shelter under jagged overhangs at midday. The second day brought storms, whipping sand and sleet into his eyes, forcing him to press hands and knees against the stone, dragging his body inch by inch. On the third, frost clung to ledges, and his muscles screamed with every movement. Each night, he had slept in patches of shadow, never fully trusting the mountain, never allowing his spirit to slacken.
Elizna observed him as he stumbled past a narrow ledge. She swooped low, brushing a wing across his cheek. Vulhairi flinched at the contact, a shiver running through him, yet his eyes never left the path. He does not falter. He acknowledges, but he does not surrender.
Ajadressor landed suddenly on a protruding rock, blocking his way. Claws flashed; a screech rolled off the cliffs like thunder. The wind flattened Vulhairi's cloak against his back. His instinct would have been to strike or step aside, but he stood his ground, battered, bloodied, unwavering. He meets the challenge without submission, Ajadressor noted, eyes narrowing.
The harpies circled higher, watching. Every wingbeat, every trill, every judgmental glance carried the weight of their expectations. This was no simple test of strength. It was endurance. Will. Presence. The mountain had demanded his body, but the harpies demanded his soul.
Elizna tilted her head, golden eyes catching the dawn light. He is not yet complete. But he listens. He feels. He moves without losing himself.
Ajadressor snorted softly, wings snapping like a whip. He will break before he bends. But perhaps… he will survive.
For hours, for days, they followed him: east and north, color and ferocity, melody and storm. Every stumble, every breathless gasp, every scrape and bruise was noted, measured, weighed. Vulhairi was becoming more than a walkling climbing a mountain. He was becoming the hinge on which their bond would rest—between east and north, beauty and survival, instinct and will.
High above the cloud rim, a figure crossed the light—neither rumor nor vision but a man of burning eyes—and for the first time the summit answered not with thunder, but with footsteps. High above, a figure crossed the light—neither rumor nor vision but a man of burning eyes—and for the first time the summit answered not with thunder, but with footsteps.