Harpies

HARPIES
Brown-nailed, Skye trotted the lush earth down. Beyond her the path nestled between two colliding sides of rock, weather-beaten down to a pair of smooth, sandy faces. Her hair was fine but hopelessly thick, and she wore dull blue. Her neck was covered. All she could care for was the clean smell of rain on dry dirt and the scent of honeysuckle on the breeze. The sky crackled overhead. Among the clouds, illuminated by the mottled shade of the gathering storm, a grand, grotesque triangle of blackened plumage tipped with a shock of blood red circled the towering stone bridge. Skye’s insides tightened and began to ache; her heartbeat was visible through her clothes.
"And where the hell do you think you're going, running on like that?"
The figure sliced the sky and beat the air into a heavy, melancholy descent. Her eyes pierced a murky green wound into Skye, who stood with her veiled head slightly bowed, as if ashamed.
At last, she found the courage to speak. "Fly away, Lyra," she said with an wavering defiance.
Lyra let out a rasping cackle that lit up the path now obstructed.
"Do you even remember who you are any more, Skye? Do you know who I am? What I am?"
Skye said nothing in reply. She knew what would come next. Lyra stepped gracefully out from the shade of the rocky bridge and into the full glare of the sun: her feathers glistened not satin but a melody of greens and mauves; her breasts hung bare and rouged like ripened fruit. In a moment, she brought her face close to Skye's, so much so that she began to melt with all the hideous thoughts she was pouring into her. She became not a harpy but a man, a human boy, with locks of wild black hair that framed her own face as his breath fell in hot, shattered and shaking pulses on her face, her neck, all over. He was gentle and dry and smiling, bringing with him pain she mistook for pleasure, and she was so drunk with the moments he filled she began to lose her grasp of all consciousness, all realities outside him...
She went to breathe him in once more, she wanted so much more, but Lyra's cold eyes were all that remained of her past moment of bliss. "You repulsive wretch," she hissed, "I hate you."
Skye swallowed her fear. "Fly away, Lyra." At length, she continued her merry pace onwards and upwards as Lyra beat ferociously about her. Her eyes were wild with fury and disgust.
"Look at me! Look at me, you!"
Skye could smell the bite of the rain on the dry soil, and the air smelled sweet and inviting. But her clouded eyes stared blindly on; she saw nothing of the tempt of the harpy or the abyss ahead.