Chapter 2
Laser-sharp eyes that seemed to observe all, and the head that turned to the slightest bit of sound, her claw and talon forever spread out in intimidation. This was the state his 'mother' was in after two of her chicks 'accidentally' fell to their death. And his father fell from a watch over duty to scavenging. And Ravik will say, he was much better at this than his mother.
Every time his 'father' came back, he would always have plenty enough food clutched in his claw and would, without even looking at his mate, fly back and go back for more, as if he were a soldier on duty. Though the reason for his duty might just be that the forever-adorned grimace and narrowed eyes, that haven't relaxed since yesterday.
Ravik shook his head from the far back of the cave, on his little nest that he created from the big nest of the rest of their family. Why not just lie together with others? Ravik slowly shook his beak. They didn't quite like him, and a little bit of pimple-like lumps that sometimes sprouted and spread on them, and he would get thrown out. Well, what can he say ? Allow me to sit on the edge, I swear I won't touch you all ?. Well, the pain from the last time he did it still hasn't been forgotten.
Ravik swears that he literally saw the light of disgust flying across his mother's face when it happened.
Ravik lurks and hides in the shadow while quietly closing in on the nest, his beak parting and condensed breath parting in between as he grabs a group of grass and retreats back to his nest once again.
But midway through, while he was retreating, his mother suddenly turned straight at him, her eyes and face still with the grimace that was previously there. And she looked around at the far back of the cave, as if looking for something but not finding it.
Wait? She can't see me? Ravik's beak parts in wonder, and he suddenly turns and observes himself. Though his chest eye, of course, as he has only one eye, and notices that he was, for some reason, kind of hard to focus and felt like he wasn't there ?, if he were to give the close comparison, it would be as if despite the fact that he was looking at himself, it felt like he wasn't there and was instead, he was focusing on an shadow or something else that was entirely different from what he was looking for.
As if while looking for gold, he saw another rock, nothing out of the ordinary. His brain subconsciously ignores the blatant gold that he mistook for rock.
His mind briefly brushed and remembered the skills that he chose, and he, in pleasant surprise with a giddy silent laugh, which unfortunately came out as a screech, turned around and walked back to his little nest, forgetting about the little bit of dried grass that he was about to carry back to his new small nest. All while under the shocked and confused gaze of his mother, who was looking at him with a faint sense of dread, as if she could not imagine waking up in the middle of the night to this kind of horror.
But fortunately for her, the dreaded nightmare did not happen, and several days continued silently and without any sort of horror.
Every day, one of the two parent birds would, with familiar motion, mostly Father, wake up early and fly out looking for food. He would then, throughout the day, bring back food, ranging from small fruits to dead small animals, some sort of bird, and the mother and her children would eat their fill. Except one that is, Ravik, the mother Harpies' only child, whose mere existence brought forth complicated emotion.
With two of her chosen children gone, feeding this little chick of hers stopped being much of a burden. Not only that, this little child of hers was even capable of eating the bones of the little animals, gulping and swallowing them whole, making the leftover even non-existent, then retreating silently to his little corner when there was no food to eat.
And now that she carefully noticed it, this little chick was eating the same as her biggest. And her biggest is eating much more than the other two. But because they are all so small for now, if she did not carefully look and observe it, she wouldn't notice it, and her thought was being proven through as this chick of hers was growing bigger and bigger, faster than the other two.
Already, it had become comparable to the other two and was only one or two size smaller than the biggest.
And to add on a fact, it was quite a strong and fierce little one as she once again observed how her little chick pushed the biggest and the other, and began gulping down anything that was in front of it.
Unknown to the mother Harpie, at that very moment when she was looking at him, observing her ugliest freaking chick that she ever saw and would ever see, Ravik was also thinking of why his mother was looking so intensely at him. "Oh SHIT, is she about to throw me out of the cave!!!!!!, GOTTA EAT MY FILL, Move over, you bastards," Ravik thought while pushing the bastards away and desperately eating his fill. "YOU FAT BASTARD, HOW ARE YOU EATING THIS MUCH, YOU ALREADY ATE MORE THAN THE OTHER TWO!!!" While pecking the biggest chick on the head.
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River of time was relentless as it was forgiving as unconsciously and unknowingly, almost a three weeks passes since birth and mother harpies children grew up fast and strong. Well, at least the left over three that is.
Out of the original eight, two died of starvation and cold, then two disappeared and about a week ago one of her own also once again disappeared. Making the mother harpy wish she could tear apart the bastard that was so cruel as to take almost half of all her children. Not only that, that bastard even left that one chick that she didn't want much, truly an cruel bastard.
But still, this chick, contrary to her expectation, grew extremely fast and strong, at least compared to the others that is. He was now officially the biggest chick, even bigger than her previous biggest and the most ravenous. But still, having him here did help her as he, probably unconsciously and without intent, made sure that no left over is there and that any bug or anything that might annoy her and her other children is gone and eaten.
Using that faint smoke of purple, he made the bugs fall and he ate it with a happy expression. At least the happy expression in body language as she couldn't made out his expression from his beaked face, another fact that proved how alien he is.
(Ravik POV)
The past three weeks was part extremely boring and part exciting.
The routine life that he found himself in offered no variation nor any excitement as there is only cave wall, his 'Family' and himself.
And that made the only entertainment that he found himself in , all the more exciting. That was his skills that followed him to this world that is. He have four skills, two passive and two active.
One of the passive made it so he grew up strong and ugly, while the other made him even more disgusting and intimidating, but the active ones are where the fun was at. One of the active skill could make him almost akin to an shadow and the other would grant him gravity magic.
There was nothing interesting about hiding in the shadow, so most of his focus was on gravity magic.
And he might say, he really enjoyed the prospect and the mystic ability that was granted to him.
When he first tried the gravity magic, it was kaboom in the little corner of the cave, in which he started calling bedroom and he fell unconscious, in which after he woke up, he was shocked to discover that he was gone unconscious too long that he even missed the food.
Then the next time he tried, he tried going slow and it worked as he managed to float an rock, an little rock weighting about hundred or so gram five centimeter above ground for a few second before becoming tired.
From that day on, whenever he had the time—which was most of the time—he kept refining his control. At first, he wasted energy trying to stabilize the rock by pressing gravity on both sides. It worked like putting a wedge under a crooked stone balanced on a blade's edge—steady for a moment, but inefficient. The slightest shift caused the whole thing to topple. The gravity he infused wasn't even strong enough to hold it in place for long.
So he experimented. His second method was to treat the rock as if it hung from an invisible thread of gravity, pulling it downward from a fixed point. At first it looked promising, but the moment the "thread" wavered, the rock swung wildly, slipping free of the field he had shaped. Instead of stabilizing, it became more volatile.
Finally, he realized the flaw. He had been treating gravity as if it were scaffolding or rope. But gravity wasn't meant to support or dangle—it was meant to pull and push. He shifted his focus, not on "holding" the rock, but on anchoring it with a steady directional force. Imbuing the rock directly, he gave it weight toward a chosen point in space. That way, it no longer teetered like a blade-balanced stone—it fell exactly where he willed, as if the world's gravity had leaned in his favor.
Then it was the reaction training, he started by lifting and letting rocks fall and him grabbing the rock and push it back upwards, akin to juggling with rocks, then it was finding the high speed targets, which was flies and other insects, and pushing them to he ground and he will say, he got much better at it as it continued and his immediate goal being to be capable of flying and looking for his food in the hell like place that he found himself in.
Ravik observed the mother and the leftover two chicks, noticing how she had gained an face that was literally few years older in mere weeks. Her stopped being elastic and thin and has started just being an normal person's face and she also started looking around the cave ever few hours, as if searching for something or someone. Well, from what he estimates, in probably
a month or two, he should be fully grown and left without home so he should really get on flying practice.
He though as he glanced at his feathers that had some veins and was much tougher and hard to pull and destroy than others. At least compared to his mother as hers felt like it was just a bit tougher and harder than normal birds. "Well, i really should start my experiment" He glanced at the two left sibling who started shivering in his presence. The former biggest one hiding behind the small one and the small one looking at the other way, towards the biggest, daringly showing his back to Ravik, mightiest of the mother Harpy.
He sent magic energy ?, power ?, doesn't know the name of the energy and started imbuing direction and force on the little chick. Not much, just enough for it to levitate off the ground. And it seemed extremely confused and desperate as it turned and moved about without avail on the air for ten or so seconds. But suddenly, he started crying out in pain ?, Ravik instantly stopped the energy and started runnin towards the now just fallen chick who was crying out in pain.
He saw how little bit of blood and probably everything in it's stomach started getting out. "QUIIIII" It's voice was desperate and pained as it tried to get away from him. "Why ?" He wondered, but before he could formulate why this happened, the swishing of wings sounded and Ravik instantly bolted towards his little corner.
Far from eye view, while silently observing his mother who was looking around in paranoia, while also licking her little chick every now and then.
[Fun fact: The reason Ravik didn't throw the big chick out in the first week even though he promised is that, he literally couldn't as he was too weak and after, he forgot about it.]