Her father’s wings lifted in a familiar preening stance as he neared his mate. Her mother, who looked up the moment he entered the room, met him with a whistling note.
“Good morning, my love,” he said, pressing a kiss to her lips. “And good morning to my middlest chick. Are you prepared for the battle to come?”
Cassandra wrinkled her nose. “I’m not detangling the twinkle lights this year. I’mnot.Three years in a row is cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got Lucy on lights this year,” her mother assured her. “You’re on icicle duty.”
Her father took a look at Cassandra’s messy bun, sighed, and reached for her. “Turn,” he instructed, clicking disapprovingly.
Stuffing the last of her muffin in her mouth, she did as she was told. While her father tugged the elastic band out of her hair and began setting her to rights, her mother called out marching orders to the assembled harpies.
Eventually her sisters made it into the kitchen, mostly unscathed, only for them to immediately start clawing at each other over the last croissant. It took two cousins, their mother, and an uncle to separate them — and split the croissant — before they finally made it out of the aviary.
“You know,” her father huffed, sending clouds of condensation into the crisp pre-dawn air, “you could stand to fight with your sisters more.”
Cassandra hunched her wings over her shoulders. The box of decorations was heavy in her hands but she still managed to quicken her pace a bit, hoping to outrun the conversation she’d been having with her parents since she was a child.
“I don’t like fighting,” she mumbled.
Her father matched her pace easily. The rest of the flock streamed ahead of them, their trilling calls and loud conversation no doubt an annoyance to anyone still trying to sleep. Their wings gleamed in a variety of colors beneath the golden glow of the street lights, but no one had Cassandra’s piebald pattern of soft white and chocolate brown.
Allegedly, she took after her great-grandmother, but no one could produce a photo, so she remained unconvinced she hadn’t been mixed up with the twins in the hospital and declared a triplet out of convenience. After all, what were the odds that two of the three girls would have their mother’s coloring but she’d get something completely different?
It didn’t matter how many times fellow harpies admired her feathers, telling her they were a good omen or that they were particularly eye-catching — the highest form of compliment for an appearance-obsessed people. Cassandra never felt like she was completely in step with her family.
It didn’t help that she appeared to have been born without the desire to fight. To most harpies, her aversion to conflict was downright unnatural.
“Maybe if you just tried a little harder,” her father cajoled, his face barely visible behind the stack of bins he carried. “It’s good for you, chickadee. Fighting with your flock helps prepare you for the world.”
“I’m plenty prepared. I’ve got a degree and everything.” They hadn’t been the most supportive of that endeavor, either, but it still meant something to her.
“But you barely leave the nest,” he continued. “Your mother and I are worried that?—”
“Dad, I’m doing fine. Not every harpy needs to?—”
“You won’t find a mate this way. How will they know you’re interested if you don’t fight them? And then what?”
“Not every mate needs to be bloodied to know they’re being flirted with,” she insisted.
No matter how many times they’d had the conversation, it never got any better. A spiky cord of anxiety wrapped around her chest and squeezed with every word out of her father’s mouth.
The sight of Ruffled Feathers, their flock’s communally owned cafe, up ahead was a sweet relief. Someone had already gotten inside and started turning lights on. If she hurried up, she could make it inside before her father said something inadvertently hurtful.
Well,morehurtful.
She quickened her steps, but it was no use. Her father, with all the love and good intentions in his heart, relentlessly continued, “No harpy worth their salt will take a mate who doesn’t put upsomefight. And if you can’t find a mate, you won’t have a nest of your own. You need a mate to look after you. What’ll happen when your mother and I die, chickadee?”
“I’m moving out,” she blurted, just inside the doorway of the cafe.
Everyone and everything stopped.
The blood drained from her cold cheeks as the flock turned to look at her with wide eyes, stunned to silence by her admission.
Her mother, who was already behind the counter preparing coffee for everyone, stared at her like she’d lost her mind. Placing her clawed hands on the glass counter, she exclaimed, “I’m sorry,whatwas that, Cass?”
Fuck.
Cassandra looked around in a panic. She hadn’t intended on telling them so soon. A part of her, the cowardly part that her father couldn’t resist picking at, had even considered just packing up one day and moving out while everyone was gone. They couldn’t be mad if it was already done.
