Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first snow of the season was always Karl’s favourite. As he sat under the cover of his shed’s overhang, smoking his cigar, he admired the little white flecks sprinkling down on the rough grounds of the junkyard. Crunchy, warm-hued autumn leaves littered the ground in contrast to the white powder slowly collecting.

Karl never really took the time to appreciate the little things. When he found his mind wandering, he’d have to discipline himself and get his mind back to focusing on his goals. His entire life and free time were devoted to Mother Miranda, he had no time to indulge in frivolous and inconsequential interests. He had an army to build, and he’d be damned if anything got in the way.

Sure, Heisenberg’s devotion to Mother Miranda was questionable, but it’s not like he didn’t love his work. Karl didn’t exactly remember his childhood, only being taken and forced into experimentation at the hands of Mother Miranda. Anything he’s ever known has been pain and suffering, so of course, he found a depraved pleasure from inflicting it on others. He channeled all of his resentment and rage into his work and it showed. He efficiently had created an army of Cadou-implanted killing machines and made many breakthroughs in his cadaver experimentation. 

He was a self-titled genius, and it wasn’t far off from the truth. Karl was an impressive addition to Mother Miranda’s family, and his work proved so useful that Miranda often regarded him as her favourite behind his sibling’s backs. Karl would always pride himself in his work, he did what he was made to do well.

Beneath his surface, he couldn’t stand Miranda, but that's beside the point. Mother Miranda could take everything he’s ever loved and rip away his youth, but she gave him a gift he could never repay. He had his intelligence, and with that, he had his army. His blood, tears, and sweat were shed to put together his army, and they were his pride and joy. Miranda would give him the cadavers to experiment on and would be given free rein to do as he pleased, ethical or not. She didn’t care, she just wanted him to build an army of ruthless, emotionless beasts who could tear through humans in seconds. 

While he did his job well, he often wondered what was next. Mother Miranda never really specified what the army was for. She would just brush off any questions like that and claimed it was to keep the village in line, but Karl knew it had to be more than that. There was no way she needed an army this brutal or this large to keep some sheeple in the village from acting up. You could shake a stick at those morons and they would crumble under the pressure. There was obviously something bigger she was planning, but Karl was unable to drill for answers in fear of Miranda’s brutality. He just had to keep working under her wishes and do as he was told. 

Speaking of working, his own smoke break was over and it was time to get back to the lower levels of his factory. He had to continue his daily experiments. He finished his lunch-break cigar, putting it out on the ugly ashtray made out of miscellaneous shells and rocks his brother Salvatore made him. As he put his hat back on his head, he took one more look at the snow falling on the ground in the junkyard. He sighed to himself, hoping that this winter would bring him answers for his million questions.

He got up, walking towards the door of the shed that led to his factory. He went to open the door, anticipating the loud creak of the rusty steel hinges rubbing together. As he turned the knob, he could’ve sworn he heard the screams of some creature in the woods and a loud thump. Odd, he didn’t remember the door making that sound. He closed and opened it again, but the sound didn’t repeat. 

He turned around and looked through the chain-link fence of the junkyard into the woods. He tried to stop all his movements to listen for any more sounds. He couldn’t hear anything, not even the normal sounds of the woods. Normally Karl didn’t feel compelled to check out odd noises from the woods. With the Lycans he created roaming about, there was bound to be screams from poor creatures or the occasional human who was dumb enough to try and leave the village. However, this sound just sounded like nothing he’s ever heard before. 

It sounded like a mix of a young lady screaming and a large bird crying out in pain. The thump was only the aftermath of what sounded like trees rustling for a good moment. To Karl, the pure silence following the sound piqued his interest more than the sound itself. Why was it suddenly so eerily quiet? Even all the birds had stopped in their tracks in shock of the noise.

Oh well, his work could wait a few minutes. He began to walk towards the gate of the junkyard to stroll through the woods and find the source of the noise. He walked in the general direction of the noise, hoping that whatever it was wasn’t dangerous as he didn’t bring his hammer with him. Guess he’d have to fight any potential enemies with his bare hands. Or he could easily summon a Lycan to his aide if need be. 

As he walked towards the area the sound came from, the birds and bugs resumed their normal mating calls. All in the woods seemed to return to normal as he wandered more. He looked for any especially disheveled trees but could find nothing of interest until he came across a strange scene. 

Karl came across a net on the ground, torn up and ripped in many places with weighted pegs on all four corners to keep whatever the net wanted to trap down. However, it must not have done its job as the net was destroyed. He leaned down in the brush, inspecting the net and if any remnants of what set it off could be found. He found nothing, only some discrepancies in the earth where the creature would’ve flailed in a panic. He moved some of the dirt around and finally spotted something a  few feet away from the net. 

It was a strange, elegant feather. It was larger than an average bird’s feather, almost triple the size of a crow’s. Its colour was a gradient, a smooth fade from a bright, neon orange to a shade of red that was comparable to the lipstick colour Karl’s bitch of a sister wore. It looked like it belonged to some tropical bird. Karl had never seen such a feather, and he wondered where it had come from. It must have come from the same creature that made the noise. He picked up the feather, decided to keep it as a little collectible from a stranger-than-usual day. Maybe he’d get the chance to see the creature later. 

For now, he had to get back to his factory and continue working on his Lycan experiments. He secured the feather in one of the pockets on his coat and walked back to the factory to go on with the rest of his day.

So Karl continued on with his day with business as usual. He didn’t think much more of the feather. He just put it in a drawer in the desk of his private quarters and got back to work. He never really let things like that distract him from his work, so he kind of forgot about the whole bird incident.

It wasn’t until he was done with his regular workday when he thought about the feather again. He had arrived back to his quarters and rid himself of his jacket, placing it on the back of his office chair and sitting down. He took a deep breath and took out a cigar from his desk. As he grabbed it, he saw the feather again and he picked it up to inspect it.

He wished he could’ve seen what creature it belonged to. He’s sure it must’ve been beautiful, all vibrant in colour. However, it must not have fared well. In these dark, dreary woods, the vibrancy would stick out like a sore thumb. It would be a beacon for anything who had half-decent eyesight. He was sure whatever it was must be dead by now. It was no matter, at least he had the bright feather as some sort of a relic. It was a little piece of colour that brightened up his workspace a bit.

He lit and started smoking his cigar, leaning back in his chair and relaxing his sore, overworked muscles. He was content now that he had some time off. He was always so overworked, and what he wouldn’t give for a massage. He’d had so many sleepless nights recently that he could practically feel the eyebags under his eyes. Hopefully, he could get a well-deserved, restful sleep tonight, God knows he needs it. 

He took another huff of his cigar, trying to stretch his arms and relieve some of the tension in his shoulders. He was hoping to have a rather relaxing evening, making himself a quick pot of beans and maybe even break into some of his stock of whiskey. Honestly, he didn’t care what he did past this point, he just needed a break. 

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get said break. At least not for that evening. He was enjoying the moment of silence to himself when suddenly the old telephone on his desk began ringing. Great, what did this bitch want? The only one who would dare call him past his factory’s hours of operations was Miranda.

“Hello?” he asked as he picked up the phone, not doing much to hide his irritated tone.

“Heisenberg, dear,” Miranda responded, her tone filled with annoyance at Karl’s own annoyance. “Family meeting, as soon as possible, please. We’ll be starting within the hour.”

“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath, sighing.

“I know it’s past your work hours, but I promise that this will be a meeting you don’t want to miss.”

Great, just fucking great. Now Karl had to lug himself over to the castle and deal with his dense family. He really hoped that Mother Miranda was telling some sense of truth, that Heisenberg would find some sort of pleasure from the meeting. He put out the end of his cigar and left the remainder of it in the ashtray, anticipating coming back to it later. He put his dusty leather hat back on his head and picked his jacket back up to put it on. 

He made his way to Castle Dimitrescu, deciding to take the scenic route through the woods. The snow had ceased and there was only a small, dusty layer of it on the ground. He, of course, stopped at the net on the ground he saw earlier and saw no real change to the earth. He then wondered who had set the net down in the first place. It couldn’t have been the humans from the village, they were too stupid to try and set up hunting traps so far away. He himself had no recollection of setting up the trap, he had no need to with his endless supply of canned goods within his factory. 

Maybe it was leftover from a long time ago, but Heisenberg wandered the woods so much that he swore he would’ve seen it by then. He was so consumed in his thoughts that he made the walk from his factory to the castle in no time. He sighed, ascending the steps and getting ready for whatever bullshit Mother Miranda wanted to subject to him today.

As he opened the grand doors of the castle, he heard it again. It was the sound, the sound of the creature he heard that afternoon. He could tell it was in pain, whatever it was. Its pained screams echoed the walls and made him cringe on the inside. It almost pained him to listen to. It made sense now, why the creature had disappeared from the scene so swiftly earlier and why Miranda wanted to hold a meeting.

He made his way to the room they all met in, and he heard a swift whack , one more pained screech, and the creature’s tormented cries stopped. He turned a hallway to arrive in the room and saw his brother, Salvatore Moreau, standing over a bright red and orange creature with a big piece of wood. Angie, the doll of Donna, one of Karl’s sisters, laughed maniacally. The doll had waltzed back in its static movement to sit on the lap of Donna who sat close to Mother Miranda’s pedestal.

“Thank you, Moreau,” Mother Miranda acknowledged, nodding her head once. Moreau made a gurgled sound of happiness and giggled to himself, gagging on some fluid in his throat, and waddled back to his spot on his chair. Poor freak, Karl thought. Everyone looked at Karl in the hallway to acknowledge his entrance, and he nodded at them once and turned his attention back to the creature.

Well, he certainly saw now why the feathers of the creature were so big. It was a human-sized creature with human-like attributes. It was tied up with a simple rope to prevent it from escaping. Its wings sprouted out from it's back. The wings matched the same colour scheme of the beautiful feather Karl had found earlier. It also had feathers around its torso, looking like feathers were covering what would’ve been breasts. With its curvature, he assumed it was female. Her face, almost completely human-looking besides the stray feathers in her (H/C) hair, also showed very feminine features. 

Her feathers paused at the waist and continued again at her torso, snaking down to her thighs and ending at her bird-like feet. He had never seen anything like her, the gradient of the yellow to orange to red feathers taking him by surprise in the dark room of the castle his family would meet in. He had no idea exactly what it was, but he knew why Mother Miranda would take interest in such a creature and attempt to capture it.

“Heisenberg,” Mother Miranda greeted. “Take a seat, why don’t you.” Heisenberg did as Miranda said, keeping his eyes on the unconscious creature on the floor. He took a seat in his chair, his big bitch of a sister sitting across from him, looking at him with contempt. He anticipated Miranda’s announcement about the creature, finding himself intrigued with it. He couldn’t tell what she wanted with him yet, though. 

“Let’s discuss the elephant in the room,” Miranda spoke firmly “or more aptly, the bird.” She walked forward and past everybody sitting on their respective chairs, standing in front of the creature. “Today, this has been found roaming the woods, far too close to the village for comfort.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not natural. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” she continued, her head dropping down for a moment to look at it. “Heisenberg,” she announced, louder than she was speaking before, turning her head to look at him. “I wish for you to get to the bottom of what it is.”

“Excuse me?” Karl asked, confused as to what she was getting out.

“Find out what it is, and find out how it can be useful for us.”

“Uh-uh, you know I don’t do my experiments on women,” Karl responded, his other sister, Alcina scoffing at him. Karl’s an old-fashioned man, he didn’t feel right doing the things he did with women. At least Mother Miranda let him have that rule. Until now, that is.

“Heisenberg, I don’t care about your silly policies. It could be spying on us, and I want you to get to the bottom of it,” she scolded. Angie laughed again, taking a sadistic delight in the family arguing with each other. Miranda sighed, regaining her composure. “Listen, Heisenberg, dear, you are the one most capable of dissecting and getting to the bottom of it. I am entrusting it to you because you are good at what you do.”

“Once you figure out what it is and ensure that it’s not a threat, you are free to do as you please with it. The creature will belong to you entirely, and you may do as you wish.” While Karl did enjoy doing his own experiments on cadavers and coming across this creature was not something you’d probably get to do often, he didn’t feel right about it. There was something so human and womanly about the creature, and there was something so vulnerable about it as well. 

“So is that all you’ve summoned me for?” Karl asked, looking down at the creature beside Miranda’s feet. He saw it twitch, and its feathers ruffled in response. 

“No, we have much more to discuss,” Miranda spoke, making her way back to her pedestal to continue with the meeting. “Do you want some of the Lycans to take it back to the factory?” she asked.

“No-,” Heisenberg interjected quickly, not trusting his Lycans to handle something so seemingly delicate. “I’ll take it back myself.”

Chapter Text

Throughout the meeting with Mother Miranda, the creature had awoken a few times and continued her cries of displeasure. It seemed its calls not only had an effect on Karl but had an effect on everyone in the room. 

“Ugh, that stupid bird is getting to my head,” Karl’s sister, Alcina, complained. Even Angie, the doll of his other sister, would dramatically sob whenever the creature continued with its cries. “Why does Heisenberg have to assess that it’s not a threat? Can’t we just kill it here and get on with our lives?”

Moreau had gotten up off his seat to hit the creature over the head with a wooden plank once again, though this time his grotesque face contorted with guilt as he did so.

“Don’t you see the effect the creature has on us? It could be useful if we can bend it to our will. That is why I’m giving it to Heisenberg. I trust that during his experiments, he can give me a way to harness how its calls very clearly affect our emotions.”

It saddened everyone in the room when it cried. It also saddened Heisenberg to see the creature be repeatedly knocked on the head multiple times over. There was no telling what the creature could do and it was better safe than sorry, but Karl had a feeling there would be some head injury he’d have to deal with at his factory.

It was cute how Miranda didn’t question Heisenberg’s devotion to her and how she entrusted him with giving her what she wanted without specifically asking. Karl could kill the bird and call it a day, but Mother Miranda thought that he would do as he was told without question. Unfortunately, she was right in entrusting him. Heisenberg was just as curious as her about the creature.

Karl couldn’t really focus all too well on the rest of the meeting. Something about the Soldats this and the Lycans that. He didn’t care to listen, he just sat there, staring at the creature as it lay comatose on the cold, hard ground of the castle. Karl wondered if the being felt the cold, as the winter’s chill was starting to draft into the castle through the roof that had collapsed in places. The feathers of it only covered some of its body. It still had long stretches of skin all over, surely they would become cold. 

Once the meeting finally came to an end, it was time to transport the passed-out creature. He still didn’t trust either his Lycans or Soldats to not accidentally mangle the creature or destroy too many beautiful feathers, so he decided to pick it up and carry it back to the factory himself. He carefully picked up the creature, trying not to ruffle its feathers too much and making sure to mind her head as to not cause any more harm. She had suffered enough head trauma today. 

Thankfully, the creature stayed asleep on the entire walk back to the factory. He would hate to have to increase the chances of the creature probably having a concussion. The walk felt short, the anticipation of seeing the creature at full consciousness and what it may have the potential to do hyping up Heisenberg’s nerves. Once he arrives back at the factory, he takes the bird directly to a vacant room with a desk, bed, storage cabinets, and a bathroom in the corner. 

He rested the creature on the small, single bed, going to the unlockable storage cabinets. He took out his keys and unlocked a cabinet he believed he left some basic supplies in. He took out a rope and a long, clean rag. Karl then walked back to the creature and set to work wrapping the rag around its head and essentially made it into a makeshift gag. He made sure to be careful of the feathers in its (H/C) hair. He didn’t want to disturb the beauty of them too much. But he still wanted to effectively render the creature’s voice useless or at least harder to use so he couldn’t be affected at all. 

Once the creature was gagged, he untied the rope that was presumably put onto it on the castle. He clicked his tongue at the amateurish way it was tied, the knots being messy and having no real rhyme or reason. It was clearly done by someone who had no idea what they were doing. He began to retie the creature using his own rope and methods when its eyes fluttered open. Karl stopped his work to look down at the creature, admiring how peaceful it looked when it wasn’t trying to scream its heart out. That tranquility didn’t last long as the creature realized its new predicament. It began to thrash its limbs in a frivolous attempt at escape, but Heisenberg kept a firm hold on the creature and pinned it down to the bed with his tall, hard body. 

“I wouldn’t waste your energy, sweetheart,” he warned, his voice low and rough. “Even if you can somehow escape me, you’re 4 levels down in an endless maze of hallways with scary monsters trying to kill you at every turn.”

Fear flooded the creature’s eyes and she whimpered once, trying to use her voice to protest and scream. But it was no use, the rag was tied in a way where she couldn’t use her vocal cords properly. She went limp in defeat when she realized she was stuck, all of her feathers rustling as she laid against the uncomfortable bed.

“Good girl,” Karl praised and went back to work tying the creature back up. Once he was finished, he let go of the creature who had been rendered immobile by Heisenberg’s immaculate knotwork. 

“You’re tough, sweetheart. Whatever you are. But clearly, you aren’t from here,” he gesticulates, wandering the room as the creature follows him with her eyes. “You’ve fallen into quite the predicament, here. You see, Mother Miranda doesn’t take trespassing lightly, nor does she like letting little pretty birds into her sights without them proving useful to her.”

“Whatever you are, you’ve clearly caught Mother Miranda’s attention,” he continues, continuing his theatrics as he speaks. “Now, I’m going to give you one chance.”

Karl leans in real close to the creature and gets up in her face. She hears the sound of metal and out of the corner of her eye, she spies a dagger floating mid-air aiming directly at her. Her eyes fill with panic. “I’ll remove the gag and let you answer some questions, but if I hear you trying to sing and manipulate my head, this knife of mine will go directly into your pretty little skull.”

She had no idea what he meant exactly by “sing”, her family sang all the time for enjoyment. But she decided she would talk as monotone as she could as to not anger the man more. She nodded in response, her body trembling and her wings ruffling as a reaction. “Good bird,” he replied condescendingly, and he used his powers to cut the rag around her mouth free. His eyes looked intently with the creature, hyperaware of any movement or noise in the room so he doesn’t let his guard down.

“Now, sweetheart, what’s your name?” He asked slowly, the knife still aimed at the creature’s head and twisting around aimlessly.

“Y/N,” the creature spoke softly, voice worn out and raspy from all the screaming back at the castle. 

“Y/N” Karl drawled, cocking his head as he inspects her, finally able to put a name to her face. “Pretty name for a pretty face.”

“What do you want with me?” Y/N asked, voice weak.

“Ah,” Karl starts, knife tip pointing into the side of her head enough to put pressure on the skin. “I said you answer my questions, not the other way around.” 

Y/N nodded her head slowly, shutting her mouth to continue and let the man talk.

“Listen, Y/N, sweetheart,” he speaks loudly. “I don’t know what you are or where you came from, but you’re in a tricky spot right now.” 

“You see, Mother Miranda wishes for me to pry your body open and figure out what you are and what you can do.” Y/N gulped at his words, picturing what the tall, dark man’s intentions were like. The creature thought that she would meet her doom with this man. “But here’s the thing, I don’t exactly normally do things like that with ladies.” Y/N signed slightly in relief, maybe the man would simply let her go. It was wishful thinking, but she hadn’t given up hope. “But that’s not to say I won’t.”

“I need you to tell me what you are and where you came from, alright? Easy and simple,” the man told her. Y/N cleared her throat, looking at the man and waiting to see if he would say anything else.

“Has your kind never heard of us?” She spoke softly, trying not to lilt her voice too much.

“My ‘kind’? My kind has been in this godforsaken village for hundreds of years. My kind owns this planet. You’re the different ‘kind’ here,” Karl scolded, taking her words as an insult.

“Sorry, Sir… I didn’t mean it like that,” Y/N assured, not wanting to anger the man further. 

“No need for formalities, sweetheart. Just call me Heisenberg,” Karl responded, his attitude suddenly changing in a manipulative fashion. “Now, tell me more about you.” It freaked her out how he could change his attitude so quickly, but she continued to speak nonetheless. 

“We are called harpies, Sir- I mean, Heisenberg,” she corrected. “We keep to ourselves away from humans in sparse groups, deep into the woods.” 

“Well, you are deep into the woods, I’ll give you that-.” he spoke, wandering the room again and gesticulating as he spoke. “Now what is a ‘harpy’ like you doing so close to a strange village in the middle of the woods?” 

“I- I don’t know. I woke up in my herd’s cove and everybody was gone… I just kept wandering, hoping to find them eventually.” Y/N admitted, feeling especially vulnerable in her situation. She had been searching for days now for her herd, flying in circles around her cove and eventually traversing farther than her herd ever advised her to. She was alone in the woods, none of her own kind anywhere to be found. 

She supposed she had flown too aimlessly and should’ve been careful. She only stopped on the trees close to the village because she saw a tree that harbored the fruit her cove did. Y/N thought she was too far away from the village to be spotted by the humans. She remembered the words of her family, telling her to always stay near her cove and to stay away from the humans. She was told their kind was cruel, violent, greedy, and manipulative beings. 

The harpies made sure to keep themselves away from the humans for the fear of humans hunting their race for trophies and treasures into extinction. They were good at keeping themselves hidden, living in places basically uninhabitable to humans or far away in purposefully hidden coves and caves deep in the woods. They assembled in what resembled packs, around 10-30 harpies in each pack with a few families in them to avoid inbreeding. If the dynamics became too closely related, young, child-bearing age harpies would be traded within herds close to each other. 

Y/N always suspected she would be given to another pack in an exchange when she grew up. Yet now she was a young adult, still in her pack without a suitable male mate and there were no talks of her being traded. She was thankful, though. She didn’t want to leave her family. Her small pack was a tight-knit one of two families who acted like one. 

There were only 8 of them, less than the average herd. They lived their lives in their beautiful cove of trees, singing and gardening. There were no known packs nearby them, at least none she was told of. The elders of the group, her grandmother, and her non-blood-related grandmother told stories of the harpies having dwindling populations. They told her the humans were growing more suspicious of their presence, and that harpies were slowly being killed off by them to make lavish coats of their soft feathers and trophies of their bird-like feet. 

Y/N always asked them why they never relocated if the local herds were being hunted. The elders refused, though, saying it’s too dangerous for a herd to travel out of these woods to find new lands to live on. She was told to stay in her cove where she would be safe from the predators of the outside world. The elders said as long as the harpies lived, Mother Earth would continue to provide for them and give them all they needed to sustain life in and around their cove.

But when Y/N woke up one day to her pack absent from her cove, she immediately expected the worst. Not even a single feather was found in or around it. No blood on the ground or their entrance to the cove being destroyed. They had vanished without a trace, and maybe thought they had left her alone forever in the cove to fend for herself.

No, that couldn’t be, Y/N thought. Somebody must have taken them, or they must’ve forgotten to let her know before flying away and finding a new place to live. In a desperate attempt to find her family, she used her full wingspan to explore the woods surrounding the cove to find any trace she could of them.

However, Y/N had never been taught how to navigate the woods properly. She wasn’t in tune with nature and her surroundings like her elders and ancestors had been. She very quickly got lost and no longer recognized where she was. She had to sleep in random trees for several days and hope she wouldn’t be killed in her sleep by a wandering human. She didn’t know whether to keep going on her frantic journey to find her pack or to stay put in the hopes that she would be saved. She ended up swooping down in the trees nearby the village, seeing the aforementioned fruit and hoping she could just get away with grabbing one and flying away.

It wasn’t the case, she wasn’t being careful enough and didn’t notice the trap that was set up to grab her and fling her to the ground. She was able to claw it open with her hind legs, but it was too late to escape when she was grabbed by humans made of shiny metal and was knocked unconscious.

Now she was there, with the scary man named Heisenberg, tracing back to what happened and where she went wrong. She should’ve never let herself be vulnerable so close to the humans. Her family was right, they were cruel, violent things. She should’ve just stayed at the cove and hope her family would come back.

“I see,” Heisenberg replied to her, snatching her attention back from her train of thought. His voice almost sounded pitiful, maybe even a hint of sorrow. But she didn’t trust a single thing this man said. “I, myself, have never heard of your kind. Not even in myth or folklore.”

“Myth?” Y/N asked, curious as to what the word meant.

“Yes, a myth. Sometimes creatures and animals we don’t comprehend are turned into myths and tales to tell the children,” he answered. He said it sweetly like he was genuinely intrigued in telling you about human culture. “You, sweetheart, look like you’ve been pulled right out of one.”

“I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say,” Y/N responded.

“You belong in a fairytale, what with your pretty feathers and your mesmerizing voice,” he cooed disdainfully. 

“I- Thank you? I suppose. I don’t know if that’s meant to be a compliment,” Y/N said back to him, nervously ruffling the feathers at the top of her shoulders where her wings connect.

“Take it as you will, Mother Miranda just wants you open on a table so she can harvest whatever power your voice has,” he replied casually as if it wasn’t an incredibly violence threat.

“My powers?” Y/N asked, confused as to what he meant and also horrified at the prospect of being cut open by the imposing man.

“Do you really have no idea what your voice did to us back there?” he asked, his voice rising an octave and becoming agitated. “Even that big bitch I call my sister was fighting the urge to sob at your cries of pain.” 

Y/N cringed at the way he emphasized his swearing, not used to hearing that sort of foul mouth unless it was from the elders speaking about the humans. She had no idea what he meant, not knowing harpies to have any effect on humans.

“Oh, please, don’t act like you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m sure your kind uses that power of yours to keep the humans from finding out about you. It’s the only way your kind has been undetected for so long.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Y/N barked back at him, suddenly regretting her decision to speak up as the knife dug back into the side of her forehead.

“Listen, bitch, don’t fucking speak to me like that, okay? I don’t care what you are or what your silly sob story is. Miranda wanted me to rip you open and see what I can find and I’m going to do my fucking job, do you understand?” Heisenberg snarled, the knife poking at her so much that it draws blood. The single droplet trails down her face and runs down her neck. 

Fighting back tears, Y/N moved into the knife to get closer to Heisenberg’s face. More blood started streaming down her face, but not enough to be of any real danger to her blood supply. 

“Then do it,” she shouted back right into his face. 

She tried her best to keep up her confident facade. She could smell the man’s disgusting breath hitting her face. She tried not to pull back to impose the man more. She didn’t care if she threatened him at this point, she needed to learn to accept her fate and realize she may never see her family again. She had no idea where they were or where home was anymore, she just had to hope her death would be quick and painless.

Chapter Text

“Then do it,” she shouted back right into his face.

“I can’t,” Heisenberg sighed, his response more aimed at himself than Y/N. “I fucking can’t.” He moved away from the harpy and put his face in his hands. “God fucking damn it, Heisenberg, it’s just a fucking woman. A weird monster woman, at that. Why can’t you fucking do it?” He spoke to himself.

Y/N looked at him confusedly, the knife dropping and landing right next to her body on the bed. She was sitting up on the bed and wondered if she could use the knife to her advantage. She knew the man could bend the knife to his will somehow. The elders never really spoke of humans being able to do that. However, the humans she had ended up being taken by weren’t exactly the greatest definition of “human”. Between the large fish thing and the weird silver men, her view of humans had greatly changed. 

While Heisenberg was lost in his little meltdown, Y/N scooted closer to the knife and tried to rub the rope on her backside against it. She wouldn’t have enough force to cut through the rope like that, and there were too many knots for one cut to suffice. Y/N still tried her best to escape, hoping that the man’s mentions of monsters were just to scare her from trying to run.

Y/N still didn’t have the most well-thought-of plans of escape, but it was an attempt nonetheless. All she could do was try to cut free of the ropes and incapacitate the man before he could use his strange powers to drive the dagger into her head. It was risky, but there was no other option in her situation. She was going to die here anyway, might as well try to fight until she couldn’t anymore. 

She tried to use her nimble, skinny bird legs to attempt to wriggle herself free. It was no use, the rope was tied too tight and she only caused chafing on the hard tissue of her claws. She couldn’t make use of her sharp talons, either. It was a useless battle, but she still tried.  

“And what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she heard booming from the other side of the room as the knife had floated back up and struck her against the arm. Y/N yelped in response, the sound making Karl cringe. The sound caused Karl to run across the room in one, swift swooping step and pinned Y/N down hard against the bed, and shoved his fist into her mouth. “I told you not to make any fucking noises.” 

Y/N tried the best she could to whimper in pain through the disgusting, sweaty hand in her mouth. She felt a large amount of blood running down her arm. The slice was deep, not deep enough to sever any veins, but deep enough for Y/N to lose a lot of blood and lose it fast. 

“That’s what happens when you don’t shut the fuck up,” Karl spat in her face. In pure fight or flight instinct, Y/N bit down hard on Heisenberg’s hand. She had thought it was over, the wound in her right arm giving her overwhelming amounts of pain. Heisenberg growled in response to his hand being bit, trying to get a hold of his powers as his pain blurred his senses. Their blood ran down their bodies as they tussled. However, it wasn’t exactly a fair fight as Y/N was tied up. 

In any other circumstance, Heisenberg would’ve killed the creature without hesitation. He didn’t care if whatever he was fighting was a lady or not. If it threatened his very being, he would kill it. But this was different, Heisenberg couldn’t bring himself to kill the creature. He was still fascinated with it. But that didn’t mean he was going to let his guard down completely and let himself get brutally injured. 

“It’s for your own good, sweetheart,” Karl whispered as he grabbed the creature by the neck and lifted it, her wings trashing violently under the ropes. She tried to get free of his large, gloved hands around her neck. He pressed his fingers down, cutting off her airway until she stopped her cries of pain that made tears form in Heisenberg’s eyes and his body shake. Once her calls ceased and she was desperately gasping for breath under his grip, he let up the pressure so she wouldn’t suffer too much of a loss of oxygen. All he wanted was to render her unconscious. He wanted the cries to stop, he wanted to not see the creatures blurry, pleading E/C eyes starring back into him with fear. He wanted the creature to be comatose again so he wouldn’t have to potentially hurt it and it would be peaceful.

The harpy began to go limp against his grip, its endless struggling faltering under the lack of oxygen being supplied to her brain. Its cries stopped as it finally lost consciousness. Heisenberg let out a long sigh as the creature sat there, body slack. He made sure she was still breathing, her chest slowly rising and falling. Thank the gods that he didn’t accidentally kill her, he didn’t want her to die. 

Karl couldn’t explain why he felt some sort of sympathy for the creature. Maybe it was its youthful innocence, its naivety, and its small world view. Or maybe it was its beauty, the red and yellow of her feathers blending to a vibrant orange. Her feminine features blended in so well with her avian features. She was truly out of a folklore myth Heisenberg would hear of on certain radio frequencies at night. Maybe the true reason Karl didn’t kill her was because of her voice, and the possibilities of what could be done with it. It could be a sonic weapon of sorts. 

He shouldn’t let his stupid morals get in the way, but at this point, it was more than morals. The creature must’ve been a rarity, and he felt compelled to cherish its beauty and keep it for himself. He feared experimenting on it may be too harsh for the fragile avian components of its body. Avian experiments almost always failed because of their fragility. He just didn’t know how much of her anatomy was human and how much was avian. 

Mother Miranda would be impatient to know the result of the experiments, so Heisenberg had to think quickly of an excuse to tell her. There must have been some sort of way to keep the creature docile and submissive. He could just lie to Miranda and keep her for herself. He’d have to figure out how to do that later. For now, he had to find a way to keep the creature’s voice in check and restrain it properly. He wondered how he could communicate with her without her using her voice. It was just too much of a risk. He already felt a headache coming on from her screeching before. 

An idea suddenly came to him. Back when he used to keep his human experimentation alive, he had multiple holding rooms with soundproof rooms with one-way mirrors. There was an intercom set up in there so he could speak to the creature with only an option to hear her. 

It was a great plan, but he worried Y/N wouldn’t be out long enough for him to get the room set up. He decided to take a risk and inject her with some light tranquilizers. He hoped that she wouldn’t have a bad reaction to it and that her body could handle it. He decided to strap her down to the examiner’s bed just in case while he left to prepare the room. He also decided to put the rag back in her mouth so she couldn’t scream out the ears of the Soldats. 

Oh shit, her arm. Karl panicked and hoped the blood loss wasn’t too significant. He quickly began to get to work on wrapping up her arm to prevent any more unnecessary blood loss. The deep red of her blood soaked the feathers, creating a bittersweet image of the creature’s pain and fight for life. After he sufficiently wrapped it up, he went to fetch a medical kit to begin stitching up the wounds his powers had left her with. It wasn’t the greatest job, it was fast and messy since he wasn’t sure how long the tranquilizers were going to last. 

Once he finished, Karl left her alone to prepare the room for her to stay in. No, be placed in while he conducts his experiments. It’s not as if he was hosting the bird as his guest, it was just a little plaything to toy with as he figured out what it was. It wasn’t hospitality, it was just him giving his subject comfort to get the best results he could. He swore that was all it was. 

He quickly got to work ordering his Soldats to bring an extra bed, chair, and table into the experimentation unit. He didn’t know what else the bird would need, or what it ate, so he decided a comfortable bed would be enough for now. He also made sure the P.A system was in order and the soundproof walls were still efficient. He felt bad for the poor Lycan he had to sacrifice to make sure of it. 

It took him about half an hour to get it all set up, and thankfully the creature was comatose throughout and he was able to easily transport her to the room. Once placed inside, Heisenberg had one of the Soldats enter the room to undo the restraints in case she decided to get feisty again. He had to admire that fighting spirit in her. He preferred when they still had fight in them yet. Once she was free of her bondage, the Soldat left through the double-layered entrance to the holding cell. Heisenberg dismissed him and sat in a chair on the other side of the one-sided mirror. 

He admired how peaceful she looked in her sleeping form. Sure, his behavior is creepy, but Karl was never one for social queues. He wasn’t trying to be a creep, he was just studying the creature’s sleeping form like another experiment. He told himself over and over again, that it was all just an experiment. 

He’s done experiments for Mother Miranda before without following her specific protocol. As long as he could give her a satisfactory answer to what she asks, she didn’t care what he did. It was one of the perks of being her favourite child. It also helped that Miranda didn’t come to the factory to check up on the facility. It was beneath her, really, to make the journey down to the factory. She had bigger things to deal with. She blindly put her trust in Heisenberg and he was grateful for that. He had more lenience than his siblings with how he contributed to her cause. 

This task, however, would prove to be a little more difficult for Heisenberg. He couldn’t just say she was able to run away or had somehow escaped his grip. Mother Miranda knew Heisenberg was too cunning to let that happen. It would immediately put a red flag over his head. Maybe he could say the creature had unfortunately passed under a difficult dissection, but Miranda could grow suspicious as it was uncommon for Heisenberg to not be meticulously careful to not ruin his alive experiments. He was very efficient in his work.

If only he could get over his stupid old-fashionedness and just rip open the gorgeous bird. He cursed how he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He may be a genetically modified superhuman, but he was still a man with pesky morals. Sure, he did still lack a lot of empathy, sympathy, and didn’t have fully developed social skills due to his secluded life. But he still consumed enough media in the format of rogue radio waves and old magazines to be stuck in his slightly misogynistic, old-school mindset. 

He thought hard about a means of communication while Y/N’s holding cell was being set up. While he had the P.A system to talk to her, it was too risky to be able to hear her voice too. He had given her a pen and paper on the table so she could write with it. The table was placed at the two-way mirror so she could hold up a piece of paper to the glass with her writings. Hopefully, she knew how to write. 

Heisenberg lit a cigar as he sat and watched the creature sleep. His sharp eyes were able to see her chest rising and falling gently. Hopefully, her internal injuries weren’t too severe. She was bound to have some sort of mild concussion or a bit of bruising, and her arm would take a bit to heal. He wished he could’ve prevented some of those head injuries at the family meeting, but there was no other way to effectively shut the creature up at the castle. Heisenberg didn’t exactly carry around his medical-grade sedation with him, either. 

Karl’s train of thought was swiftly derailed when he began to notice Y/N shifting around on the bed. He could tell the sedation was beginning to wear off as her eyes fluttered open and she stared at the ceiling. It would take a bit for it to all wear off and she would realize that she was still stuck in this strange man’s factory. Until that sedation wore off completely, Heisenberg continued to smoke his cigar and study the creature’s waking habits. Her breathing was shaky, feathers ruffling slightly as she tried to regain a steady oxygen flow. Her eyes didn’t reflect her situation yet, she was still so serene and peaceful looking. Karl did not doubt that once her brain became a little more clear from the sedation fog, she would begin to freak out. 

He was right about that, Y/N’s wings began to flounce erratically and her eyes grew wider. She bolted upright and tried to take in her surroundings. Unfortunately, she had issues with sitting up so fast. She clutched her forehead as she sat up, and Karl presumed that she made a disgruntled noise at the sudden rush of blood to her head based on her facial reactions. She frantically looked around the room, her eyes landing on the big one-way mirror. He knew it was all his imagination, but Karl swore her eyes were boring right down into him. 

She got up, albeit a little bit ungracefully, and moved to the mirror slowly. Karl looked down at the button to activate the P.A. system.

“ I’d be careful there, sweetheart ,” his voice boomed and made Y/N jump. She looked at the ceiling in confusion, wondering how she could hear the man and why it sounded so echoey. She didn’t quite understand fully how human technology worked. “ That sedation might take a bit to wear off completely .”

Karl could see Y/N open her mouth to speak back, but her words went unheard to him. “ Sorry, buttercup. Can’t hear you in there. But if you come up to the mirror there’s a pen and a paper you can write on and show to me. If you know how to write, that is .”

“ Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I’m on the other side of the glass. I know it’s not ideal, I would prefer for you to see me as well, but unfortunately, there was only so much I could do on such short notice with your arrival. ”

Y/N approached the mirror with her eyebrows furrowed. She didn’t understand how he was able to see her and she wasn’t able to see him. She knew her elders told stories of the humans having strange technology that seemed like magic, but she had never actually seen those things up close. 

It felt gross to have this weird, old man watching her through the glass. She felt like some sort of trophy being kept in a cell for him to watch. She tapped on it once out of curiosity, even though deep down she knew it wouldn’t change anything.

“ Are you able to write? It would help for you to communicate with me better ,” Karl spoke again over the speaker. Y/N sighed and went to pick up the pen. It was different than the tools she used to write with, but she could manage. She thanked that the elders taught her how to write, even though it had no real use to her until now. She thought for a moment of what she could write, and then she put her pen against the paper and began writing.

Karl sat back in his chair to watch her write. He couldn’t make out what she was writing from the angle the table was set up, but he was content to wait and see what she would write back. He was also just shocked that the creature could write.

A few moments later, Y/N looked down at her messy, scribbled writing on the page. She picked up the notebook, holding it up to her chest as she approached the mirror. Karl sat up, anticipating what the creature had written for him. Y/N held the notebook up to the glass and all that was written in big, messy letters was-

“ Fuck you “

Chapter Text

Heisenberg wasn’t sure how to react. At first, he sat in silence, staring at the notebook in awe. With his mouth slightly agape, his hand hovered over the button that controlled the P.A system. However, he didn’t press it to give a witty retort. All he did in response was laugh. At first, it was quiet, and then it grew louder. He almost found himself in hysterics, his eyes even shedding a single tear just from the pure amusement.  

Y/N decided to put the notebook down. She was scared to know what his reaction would be, and his silence only fueled that fear. She didn’t know why she wasn’t dead already, and her defiance really made her think she had sealed the deal with death. 

Once Karl calmed down from his laughing fit, he looked back at the harpy. She looked scared, still awaiting what would happen next.

“ You’re real cute, y’know that ?” Heisenberg spoke over the P.A system. “ Lucky, too. If you were anyone else your brains would be splattered against a wall .” 

In anger, Y/N slammed back down the notepad and picked the pen back up. She ripped out the page she wrote on before and began to furiously scribble on the next paper. Once she was done, she rushed back over to the mirror and held it up for him to see. 

Why have you not killed me?

Heisenberg sighed, trying to come up with a good answer on the spot that would satisfy his experiment. “ Because you’re of no use to me dead .” She turned back to the table and ripped out another page. Again she began to write then brought it back up to the mirror. 

What do you want from me?

“Has it really not gotten into your head yet?” Heisenberg asked demeaningly. “ Your voice, girl. Your voice does things to people .”

Y/N still didn’t get it, her elders never told her of a harpy’s voice being used to manipulate humans’ emotions. She would think that would be an important thing for them to bring up. She just shook her head, her hand coming up to her forehead while she looked down. A sudden rush of pain flooded her head, and she began to get woozy. She stumbled to the chair placed at the table and ineloquently plopped herself down on it. 

“ The pain is finally catching up, hm? ” Karl asked through the speakers. Y/N nodded in response, resting her head on the table. “ No doubt you probably have a concussion. I’m sure the blood loss from your arm doesn’t help, either .” 

Y/N almost completely forgot about her arm. The adrenaline from waking up in the strange room to the rush of exhausting pain from her head took her mind off of it. She looked up to glance at her arm, hoping that it wouldn’t be too bad. She doesn’t know how she didn’t realize it in the mirror at first glance. The skin around the initial wound was red and swollen. The actual wound itself was stitched up. Y/N had seen something like this once when her younger brother had torn open his leg on a sharp branch. One of the elders had closed up the wound with string in a similar pattern to the stitching on her arm. The man had stitched it up for her, presumably. Right after knocking her out cold. He wasn’t afraid to hurt her, but he didn’t want her dead. 

A large wave of panic set in causing Y/N to tremble. A few of her feathers fell to the ground which she guessed was from the pure stress of it all. This would be her life now, subject to deal with whatever the man wanted to do. She would be tested on and poked with things, maybe even be torn apart piece-by-piece, just like all of her elders had warned her. She broke the one rule she had to follow, and now she had to suffer the consequences of doing so. 

Instead of lashing out with anger, an overwhelming sadness hit her. She tearfully looked at the mirror, taking in her appearance. She was disheveled, bruised, and exhausted. Her wings were caked red with dried blood, her eyes were black and blue with a mix of her eyebags and bruises. Her arm where she was scrapped by the knife was inflamed. She had been flying aimlessly for days, her energy being slowly depleted from her body as she frantically looked around for her pack. She didn’t eat much while she traveled, she just didn’t feel like it. The anxiety of finding her family reigned over her need to eat. 

She turned around, not wanting to look at herself anymore. She looked at the bed and thought she didn’t deserve the tiny amount of comfort the bed might give her. She slowly strode to the corner, sitting down on the floor. The stone felt cold against the skin-covered parts of her flesh, but she didn’t pay too much mind to it. She hugged her knees close to her chest, folding her head down as well. All she did was sit there and loathe at the fact that this was all she would know, now.

“ Sweetheart, is everything alright there ?” Karl asked in what Y/N swore was a somewhat mocking tone. She didn’t reply, trying not to let too many tears fall. She didn’t know if he could see her very well but she didn’t want to appear too weak. Y/N thought she heard the man continue to talk to her. But all of it muddled together was just white noise to her. She tried to tune him out completely, just wanting to be alone in her thoughts and reflect on her missteps. 

Karl continued to call out for her, but she wasn’t responding. She was too dissociated in her mind and Karl knew it would take time for her to process. He sighed, taking his finger off the button. He picked up the cigar and decided he would go take a break. It had been a few hours now since he brought the harpy home, and he was admittedly pretty tired. He would never show it to his siblings or Mother Miranda, but he was often tired. He was wrapped up in his work constantly and didn’t sleep much. He got all that was necessary for him to be alert and perform his job as best he could, but there were still moments where it was overwhelming to him. 

He decided to leave the harpy alone, navigating his factory and coming up to the junkyard for a smoke break. Not that he didn’t smoke in his factory normally, he didn’t care about how bad it was for the lungs of the Soldats and Lycans, he didn’t even care about the lungs of the harpy who probably has never heard of smoking tobacco. He just needed fresh air, and he needed to be surrounded by the woods to feel a little calmer. 

He found himself exactly where he was this afternoon, staring at the little layer of snow left on the ground from the earlier little flurry. He smoked his cigar, taking in every sweet mouthful and savouring them. There was no telling how the next few weeks would unfold for Heisenberg. The creature that had fallen into his hands would certainly complicate things. The feelings he had towards her were conflicting, he didn’t know why he didn’t have it in him to just dissect it and get on with his life. Maybe it was her voice, maybe it was already had such an effect on him that he couldn’t bring himself to truly hurt her. 

He wished he knew more about the creature, he’d never heard of a harpy and wished he know some more of its anatomy and physiology. For now, he had to improvise. He didn’t want to risk cutting it up, nor did he think he even had it in him to, and the creature was probably as naive to itself as he was. He hoped the creature was faring well in the cell, Karl was sure she would be erratic and most likely moody as she wallowed away. However, he would eventually have to get her to eat something and he didn’t know what she ate. 

He supposed he could get away without her eating for one night. At the moment, he wanted some sleep after his hectic day. He finished the rest of his cigar, putting the burning remnants of the wrapping into the ashtray. He brushed his hands on his pants and headed back inside the factory. 

Before going to his chambers, he went to the room where the harpy presided. He wanted to check in on her one last time before going to bed. As he entered the room, his jaw was tense as he didn’t know what would await him. When he found her, still in the back of the cell curled up in a little ball, he subconsciously frowned.

She appeared to be asleep, the darkness around her eyes being more accentuated as they’re closed. He didn’t know how she fell asleep with the beaming light he left on. At least her probable concussion wasn’t too harsh as she had no issues falling asleep. He hoped that she wouldn’t fall into a coma while she slept, but he wasn’t well versed on what to do with someone with a concussion. His patients were usually dead, after all.

Instead of looking into it more, Heisenberg turned off the lights to the cell. He hoped it would help her get a night of more restful sleep so he could properly drill her with more questions tomorrow. He fondly looked at the sleeping creature, wondering how on earth their kind could’ve survived for so long. The feathers were so bright, surely any predator could easily them in their supposed dens. 

Tomorrow he would have to work on washing the creature. The blood couldn’t be very good for their wings. Plus it would bring her a little more comfort in the unfortunate, cold dungeon-like cell she had to be kept in. For a moment he even pitied her, slightly relating to her situation of being lost in a brand new world. When Heisenberg was taken in by Miranda, he didn’t even remember his family or if he even had one. He was just met with coldness, resentment, materials, and powers to work with. 

The likelihood of Y/N finding her family was very slim. Anything goes in these woods, and Heisenberg hypothesized that they would all be most likely dead by now. So in these creatures’ vulnerable moments, now in Heisenberg’s hands, Heisenberg decided in the back of his mind that it was now his duty to give the lady a more comfortable rude “real world” awakening than the one he had received. 

He stopped himself in his thoughts. What was he thinking? Why had he so quickly grown fond of this random creature who just happened to drop down into these woods? Was it because he saw a bit of himself in her? Was it because of the slight innocence and ignorance of the world around her that was such a contrast to everybody else he was surrounded with? He shook his head, turning around to leave the cell before his stupid brain could wander anymore. 

Karl made his way back to his private quarters, removing his hat and coat as he stepped in and closed the door. He went to his storage shelves situated in the back of the large stone room and grabbed a can of refried beans. He walked over to the little kitchenette portion of his quarters and grabbed a pot for the beans. He turned his stovetop onto medium heat and opened the beans to pour them into the pot. Then he added water to prevent the beans from drying out. 

While he waited for his quick dinner to cook, he began to take off his boots and then the rest of his clothing and gear. He was left in his simple brown slacks and his green undershirt. After he found himself in a comfortable state of undress, he turned off the stovetop and poured the beans he had made into a simple old ceramic bowl that had been part of a gift from his sister, Donna. She had gifted him a set of dishes he could use to cook for himself in his factory ages ago. He thought those were the only dishes he had ever really owned in his life, and he’s been only using those since he’s been in the factory. 

It was just the same-old-same-old for Heisenberg. Same stocked shelves of canned goods he cooked with, same dishes he ate off of. The same cadaver experiments and the same old, dingey halls of the factory he walked across every day. It wasn’t that Heisenberg didn’t enjoy the familiarity of his routine, he thrived in it. It was just that there was something deep within him that craved something new .

Maybe that was why he was so entranced by the creature. It was something new to him and it offered him the chance to focus on something different, something entirely new to him. 

As he ate, he tried to think up ways to further understand the harpy’s voice and the possible effect it could have on people. He had one possible idea, but it would likely make the harpy very uncomfortable and fearful. He thought more about it as he finished and washed his dishes in his little grimy sink. He needed to clean his space up, he just hasn’t been spending a lot of time here lately. 

After he finished up, he didn’t even need to check the time to know it was late into the night. He was tired and ready to just fall back onto his bed. He didn’t even change into his actual sleepwear before he laid down on his old cot. His head hit the pillow and he had a few brief conscious moments before a deep sleep overtook him, sending him into a quiet rest. 

***

“ You had one rule to follow, Y/N” her grandmother had warned. “And you broke it.” 

Her voice sounded like it was booming over the strange devices in the factory of the man who had taken her here. She curled up in fear, her grandmother’s distorted voice becoming more menacing. 

“You let the humans get you, and you have no one to blame but yourself,” she continued, the voice getting louder in her ears. “Nobody is coming back for you, you’re going to die right where you lay.”

Y/N began to cry, holding her knees tight to her chest and her wings curling around her as an extra layer of comfort. 

“Y/N?” she heard a voice say meekly, much more real-sounding to her than her grandmother on the strange speaking machine. She looked up quickly, her wings unfolding to see two shadowy figures standing in her darkened cell. They were smaller, much smaller than the man, yet they were so familiar. 

“Augy?” Y/N spoke back as the figure moved closer. It was her younger brother Augustus. His small, purple/orange gradient wings being a beacon of light to Y/N for the first time since her arrival here. “Aug, what are doing here?” 

“Why did you leave the cove, Y/N?” her brother asked her, completely ignoring her question. “Please, Y/N, why did you leave us?” Y/N backed up against the wall as the figure in front of her who pretended to be her brother transformed. Gorgeous feathers flew off of him as his wings retracted and fleshy-colored lumps began to form under his skin. 

She was trapped against a corner as the grotesque man-fish who had repeatedly struck her down many times earlier in the day had formed out of her brother. He laughed maniacally in his distorted, eerie voice. She could see the same plank of wood in his hands as he slowly approached her.

She wanted to flee but some force was keeping her locked in place. She cooed out softly, hoping that the whole voice thing the creepy man who brought her here said had any merit. It didn’t as the fleshy fish-man approached her and held up the plank of wood.

“You weren’t supposed to leave,” he simply said before drawing back the plank and driving it at her head hard. 

Y/N woke up in the same room she fell asleep in, startled from the nightmare that seemingly seeped into her real life. She was still trapped in the cold, stone room of the strange man’s factory. At least the horrifying image of her brother turning into the fish man wasn’t in the real world to haunt her. 

The beaming lights above her were off, and she was still in that same darkness as her nightmare. She inspected the room for shadowy figures, standing up and leaning on the stone wall as the blood rush to her head made her dizzy. Suddenly the overwhelming lights turned back on and she cowered in fear. Her eyes stung from the harshness of the light and she felt a pain grow in the back of her head.

“ Looks like someone’s finally awake ,” the strange man spoke from behind his weird mirror. Y/N sighed, slightly glad her dream nightmare was over but anxious over what nightmare her real-life might become. She was suddenly overly aware of the pain in her arm, the stitches looking red and swollen and a hint of pus at the wound site. She grew concerned, not seeing wounds usually looking like this and hearing of stories of harpies dying of infected wounds. She was told of the strange remedies the humans had to cure those wounds, but harpies lived in fear of the humans so they never had the same medicinal properties. 

Y/N strode slowly over to the mirror, holding up her arm and pointing, hoping the man would take notice.

“ Well, that doesn’t look very nice ,” Heisenberg spoke softly over the speakers. “ Is it painful? ” Y/N nodded in response, poking the inflamed skin once. Heisenberg sighed to himself off the speaker. Great, the wound was infected. He’d have to somehow source some antibiotics and get her on a drip as soon as possible. “ Listen, buttercup, you need my help. If we let it go, it could kill you .”

Y/N understood the stakes, but she didn’t understand why the man was so adamant about helping her. It uneased her how sternly he insisted that she needed his help. She knew it was true, that the infection would most likely kill her, but she still didn’t understand why he was keeping her alive. 

“ I won’t do anything without your permission, though. Tell me, now, do you want me to help you ?” He asks, and all Y/N did in response was look at the mirror and nod. After a few minutes of just staring back into the mirror and waiting, a whirring noise started. The metal pieces she presumed were the doors to her cell opened. She stood back, still peeking at the machine that was moving on its own. 

As soon as she caught a glimpse of Heisenberg, a long sheet of metal had been flung up against her chest. She gasped at the force, trying to stay quiet. She remembered not to use her voice as to not make the man angry. The sheet lost some of its force while holding her back and a knife had appeared in front of her head. The man stalked in, the knife floating in mid-air. Y/N darted her eyes back and forth between the sharp object aimed at her skull and the menacing man creeping towards her. 

“I’m gonna need you to hold out your arm for me, doll,” he snarkily remarked. Y/N listened and held out her arm, slightly shaking in anticipation. Heisenberg very harshly grabbed her arm, pulling her in swiftly so he could get a closer look. She winced in pain, a little whimper coming out as a gasp as she tried to hold back her voice. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he replied, his eyes peeking over his sunglasses for a glance at her face. The metal sheet had dropped just in front of her feet.

He looked back down to her arm. “And I’m sorry about this-,” he spoke again as he pulled out a needle Y/N had no idea he even had with him. She gasped as the needle poked into her arm under the wound. She tried her best not to cry out in pain or in fear for her life. She hoped that he was doing this for her own good and that this couldn’t be the end for her as she was injected with a strange fluid. 

The needle was sharp, but it wasn’t an excruciating pain like the knife that scrapped her arm the day before was. It was a sharp pinch that pierced through her skin quickly. Heisenberg looked at her expectantly as he took the needle out of her arm. At first, Y/N felt nothing at all. The sting of the initial prick went away and instead she started feeling numb, almost calm. 

“You should lay down,” Heisenberg warned, and Y/N listened and moved over to the bed. She felt tired, the calmness flowing through her entire body. 

It eventually got too calm, and Y/N began to freak out internally. She tried to move her wings but was unable to, she was stuck in place and her tongue drooped in her mouth. She tried speaking, but her mouth muscles were too weak to. 

“It’s for both of our safety, doll,” Heisenberg assured, his overall tone still menacing to Y/N. The needle floated away and landed on the table. Another one came out and Heisenberg picked it up and walked back over to her. He leaned down and looked at her other arm, pinching the skin where the elbow connects her lower and upper arm. He let the needle float over his shoulder for a moment while he took out a little container of fluid and a package of cotton swabs. Y/N felt herself struggling to read the container, but she was eventually able to make out the word “Alcohol.”

Heisenberg dabbed alcohol onto her inner elbow and took the needle out of the air again. He mumbled a quiet “shit” to himself and threw the bottle of rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs back into his pocket. He lifted his glasses so they were resting on his forehead as he aimed the needle into the harpy’s skin. 

“Just another pinch,” he told her, Y/N being too dazed to reply in any way. She understood what he was saying and acknowledged it in her head, she just couldn’t move or talk.

Karl pushed the little needle delicately into her skin, his metal-bending powers helping him maneuver the intravenous line into her vein. He left it sitting there for a moment as he dug through his pocket once again and grabbed the medical tape he picked up before he came in. 

“Perfect,” he muttered to himself, inspecting his needlework and feeling a little pride in himself. He’s inserted IVs before, just normally they were inserted into bodies without blood pumping through their veins. He’d never done it to an alive subject. He turned around and started walking towards the door, the mechanisms whirring for a moment as he stepped out. He returned momentarily, wheeling in an IV pole that made Y/N’s eyes light up in confusion. She had never seen such a thing.

“This’ll make you feel better,” he told her, bringing it over to her bed. There was a bag along with an IV line attached to the top of the pole. After Heisenberg rolled it over to her, he picked up the IV line and began flicking the little bubbles out of it. He made sure it was properly hooked up to the bag of antibiotics and attached it to Y/N’s IV line, securing the line down on her arm with more tape. 

“Sorry, doll, don’t do these too often,” he truthfully told her. Y/N couldn’t reply, but that didn’t make her feel better about any of it. The liquid antibiotics began slowly flowing through the thin tube and into the body of Y/N. He mentally crossed his fingers and hoped that Y/N would have no adverse effects on the medication. It was a general antibiotic, so hopefully, her half avian/half mammal body would take to it well. 

“I’m really sorry about the sedative too, but it allowed me to focus better. Promise, I didn’t mean to hurt you or anything. Just can’t trust you yet, you and that voice of yours,” Karl went on, even though Y/N couldn’t reply. “Well, uh, I suppose I’ll let you get your rest in here. The sedative should wear off eventually, I’ll be behind that mirror and I’ll come back if something happens…” 

Y/N’s eyes followed Heisenberg as he exited the room again, and she felt her eyes grow heavy. Sleep finally overtook her body once again as the sedatives fully kicked in. Heisenberg watched from behind the mirror as her chest began to breathe steadily. She was once again in peaceful rest, her body fighting off the infection of her arm along with the antibiotics. 

By the time Heisenberg had witnessed the harpy wake up and he set up the IV, it was late afternoon. The creature had slept in late, probably exhausted from the previous day’s scuffle and the stress of being captured by the Lords in the village. The very possible concussion she had probably didn’t help either. He should really look further into that. 

He was thankful that his factory didn’t completely fall apart as he took the time to further examine the harpy’s case. A lot of things were already automated and the Lycans and Soldats were relatively calm and not causing too much of a ruckus. He deserved a little break from the same old routine, anyways. 

As he navigated through his factory, he found himself at the tomes of his extensive medical literature and textbooks, he tried to look for something that would help him diagnose a concussion. Medical stuff wasn’t exactly Karl’s profession, though as a scientist, he still was well versed in basic procedures and certain medical analyses. Having to deal with the creature’s health problems wasn’t exactly along his usual lines of work, so he had to think a bit outside the box. 

He took a book out of his shelves about the management of traumatic brain injuries to learn more on how to deal with a possible concussion. He brought it back to his private quarters to take a quick smoke and lunch break. As he sat at his desk and skimmed over the pages, the dreaded telephone on his desk began to ring. Goddamnit, what did the bitch want this time?

“Hello?” Karl sighs into the phone, still chewing on a greasy mystery canned meat sandwich he made for himself.

“Heisenberg,” Mother Miranda simply says back, devoid of any tone. “How is our friendly trespassing bird doing?” Shit, he should’ve seen that coming.

“Oh yes, that,” Heisenberg casually remarks back. 

“ That ? Heisenberg, a strange creature beyond our explanation has fallen into our village and you are so nonchalant about it?” Miranda questions. 

“Listen, Miranda,” Heisenberg starts, putting down his sandwich and closing the book. “I’ve run into a bit of a snag, you see, with the, uh, bird-thing.” He continues, stopping himself from calling it a harpy. 

“What do you mean?” Miranda inquires.

“Well, um, you see, I’m not quite used to operating on subjects who are, well, alive… I hate to admit my own faults, but I believe I was a bit too rough with it under the knife and, well, it, unfortunately, passed on me.” 

Heisenberg had always been a terrible liar when it came to Miranda. It was usually obvious when he wasn’t telling the truth to her. He grit his teeth, he stumbled over his words, and he never stumbled over his words. He also nervously tapped his foot, his hands stretching unconsciously as he moved his fingers in an anxious dance. Thank god that he was talking to Miranda through the phone, and his eating made for a good excuse as to why he may have fumbled over a syllable or two. 

“I see,” Miranda replies coldly, still devoid of any emotion that Heisenberg could pick up on. “Is the corpse in decent condition?”

“I suppose so, little bloody, but otherwise it’s alright,” Karl says slowly, taking in another bite of his sandwich quick to keep up with the lie. 

“Then I would like to request a piece of it. A trophy, one would say.” Well, shit . That threw a wrench into his predicament, and usually, he was the one to throw wrenches around. 

“Like a feather or something?” Heisenberg asks nervously, hoping that he could get away with plucking an orange plume and being done with it.

“I was thinking something bigger, maybe it’s wings or a claw. You can have the rest, of course. Do whatever you need to do with the remainder of the cadaver,” Miranda replies. Well, that would be a little bit harder for Karl to pull off.

“Alright, fine. I’ll cut you off a piece and send it off in a few days. I want to thoroughly examine it first. Are we good?” Karl hastily replies, wanting to end the call as soon as possible. 

“Very well,” Miranda retorts and the line goes silent. Karl mutters “shit” to himself and slams the phone down on the receiver. The last thing he wanted to do after essentially trying to coddle the harpy to full health was cut off its entire leg. Why did his mind instantly jump to lying about the creature’s death? He blames the stupid mind games Miranda has played on him his whole life and how much of a grip she truly had on him. 

He was stupid and childish and that’s what got him into this mess, so now he would have to logically get himself out, even though his pesky morals kept getting in the way.

Well, he was certainly no longer in the mood to eat. He left his half-eaten sandwich on his desk along with the head injury book and decided to go back to check in on the creature. As he waltzed through the halls to head back to the holding room of the harpy, he witnessed two Lycans getting into a bit of a scuffle in a closed-off unoccupied storage room. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he sternly told the Lycans who were snarling at each other in a defensive battle. “What did I tell you fuckers about this behavior? Knock it off,” he barked at them. 

The two Lycans took a break for a brief moment to look at Heisenberg and looked back at each other to continue their snarling competition.

“Excuse me, you fucking imbeciles. Did you not fucking hear me!?” He yells, the Lycans still waiting for Heisenberg to physically separate them before stopping their quarrel. “None of this shit is allowed in this godforsaken factory, alright!?” 

The Lycans backed down in submission and bowed their heads down. Karl knew his voice had probably boomed throughout the entire factory and other Lycans and Soldats had been alerted of the encounter. He knew he needed to send a message and at least give the unruly Lycans some sort of punishment.

He thought about his usual methods, a few thousand volts, an awake, open excisional biopsy, or even just a plain old stab wound. But then it hit him, the idea he had from last night. It was the perfect opportunity to kill two birds, or, er, not birds, with one stone. It would also help to help further his research on the harpy’s vocal effects. 

He’d make her sing for them.

Chapter Text

Y/N had no idea how much time had been allotted since the man had placed the thin, sharp piece of metal into her arm. She had never seen such an instrument, and she assumed it was another medical contraption the humans used that the harpies have never implemented into their own practises.

She was drifting in and out of consciousness, the little moments of being awake giving her little time to process the trauma and the strange human medicine running through her veins. The sedatives the man talked about felt strong within her. She had tried on multiple occasions to lift her limbs but she was too weak to. It felt as if all the muscles in her body were overly relaxed. Her awareness was still intact, but she could move around or even use her voice. All she could do was breathe and curl her talons slightly.

As time continued to move on, she regained more of her strength and was able to move a little better. She was able to flutter her wings a bit as best as she could as she was laying down on them. Instead of just being able to wriggle her talons, she was able to curl her claws better and move them around. She no longer felt the overwhelming need to keep sleeping and she finally had some energy in her once again.

She didn’t have all of her energy back, but she was definitely feeling better than before. The calm sensation was still with her and was probably preventing her from freaking out from being drugged by the man. She glanced at the doors, taking note in her head that they were closed and that the man was probably watching her from the other side. She wondered if he would take notice and begin to talk to her again at the realisation that she was awake.

More and more time went by and more of her strength was recovered and there were no words from her captor. She was finally able to sit up on her bed, taking in the sight of the intravenous line in her arm. It was fascinating to her to watch the fluids flow into her body. To think that those fluids were saving her life and helping her recover, at least she wanted to believe that’s what they were doing. The caked blood on her wings were beginning to become somewhat of a hindrance in her movement. Her feathers struggled to ruffle under the layers of crusty red. She felt disgusting and uncomfortable as she sat in a pile of various bodily fluids. She wondered if the man would let her have a bath.

“Ah, you’re awake.” Speak of the devil. “I hope you weren’t awake for too long, I had some business of mine to attend to.” So that’s why he hadn’t tried to talk her ears off sooner. She was thankful she didn’t have some sort of medical emergency that required his attention while he was gone. That wouldn’t have been very beneficial to her.

“Glad nothing happened while I was gone. Are you feeling any better? Have the sedatives worn off?” He asked. She didn’t know how he expected her to answer, she didn’t feel comfortable enough to stand up and walk over to the table. She didn’t even know how to with the tube inside her and the big metal pole it was attached to.

“Ah, yes, I suppose it’s not the easiest thing in the world to communicate like this,” he pondered, more to himself than you. “Can you at least nod your head?” In reply, she nodded her head slowly. She felt tension in her neck but, it was still manageable.

“Good,” he spoke, and she could’ve sworn she heard a growl followed by a whimper in the background. She looked around, wondering if it was coming from her cell or if it was from the outside. “Shut the fuck up!” He yelled over the speaker, causing Y/N to cower for a moment at the loudness of it.

“Sorry,” he apologised quietly. “I didn’t mean to keep the microphone on for that.” After his last words, there was some silence. Y/N patiently awaited another word from the man, more soreness slowly crawling into her body as she regained more energy.

“Now, Y/N,” he addressed, and that was one of the first times she had heard him speak her name to her like that directly. She was beginning to think he had forgotten it or that he didn’t care enough to remember or call her by said name. “Would you like to clean yourself? Get all of that blood and dirt off of you?”

Y/N couldn’t nod fast enough, wanting nothing more than to lounge in the hot springs a little flight away from her cove that she would occasionally go to with her pack. Of course, the hygiene treatment that the man was speaking of probably wasn’t along the lines of bubbling hot springs in a gorgeous forest. However, she didn’t feel very picky, she just wanted to feel cleanliness and get the layers of grime off of her.

“Good, I thought that’s how you would feel,” he responded to the nod. With his tone of voice, Y/N suspected he had ulterior motives. A wave of nausea hit her at what the man could possibly want. She hoped it wasn’t too sick and twisted, she still had some pride in her she’d like to reserve. “Now, I have a proposition for you.”

There it was, he wanted something. Y/N stressed in her head, waiting to hear what the man wanted from her and if she could deliver.

“I’m going to need you to sing for me,” he told her, and Y/N didn’t quite understand what he meant. She cocked her head towards the mirror as if questioning him. “Well, not for me specifically.”

“You see, I have some subordinates of mine who have been… let’s say, insubordinate,” he told her, and with that, she heard a bellow of a terrifying beast over the speakers. She instinctively flinched backward at the noise and wondered if that was one of the many monsters the man talked about lurking everywhere. Blurred images of seeing creatures when she originally arrived in the village popped up. Y/N guessed she was too busy with the stress of everything else going on around her that she forgot about the monsters, but the sounds were still familiar to her.

Fear continued to rise in Y/N as it sunk in what the man wanted from her. Did he expect her to get up close with the beast? Surely she would get torn to shreds by the thing. She hadn’t been able to get a good look at one, but if the sounds were anything to go off of, she was screwed. The mechanisms of the door began to whir, but the door to her room never opened. More whirring ensued and the same knife had come up to her head from before.

“Sorry again, sweetheart,” Heisenberg cooed from across the room, a large, furry monster in tow on a silver chain with eyes and claws that would make a grown man shit his pants. The beast took in a breath of air within the room and slowly shrunk back against the closed door behind him. Y/N watched the situation unfold as the monster attempted to leave but Heisenberg continued to drag him into the cell.

“Goddamnit, what the hell is with you!?” Heisenberg scolded, giving a hard yank to the leash. The monster gave in to the harsh pull and followed behind Heisenberg, cowering behind him and looking at Y/N like she would attack it at any moment. “I don’t fucking understand you things, you filthy mutts need to learn a thing or two.”

Heisenberg dragged the monster to the opposite side of the cell opposite of Y/N’s bed. The chain had flown up from Heisenberg’s hand and wrapped itself around a metal pole on the ceiling that looked to be used for structural support. It tied itself in a thick knot. The creature was pulled up against the chain so it had limited movement. It was stuck standing with the leash tight around its neck as it glared at Y/N.

The knife continued to hover menacingly in her face and Heisenberg turned his attention towards her. “Not yet,” he said, backing away slowly towards the door. “You can wait there until I’m out of the room, okay? I’ll give you instructions when I’m out of here and I can talk to you over the speaker.” Y/N just nods, too scared to say anything. The knife retracts itself and follows Heisenberg out of the cell as the doors closed.

Y/N was left alone with the beast whose attention was entirely on her. His glare burned through her being and she felt as if he wanted to pounce and kill her. Nothing happened for a moment and Y/N and the beast continued their stare-down. She hoped that the knot on the chain was secure enough and it couldn’t break free and attack her.

She still didn’t know what the man expected from her. Her people sang, it was a way to communicate from long distances or to show simple emotions to each other. She never knew it to be a weapon of sorts, and she only yowled in pain when she was first captured out of instinct and hoped another one of her kind would come to save her.

Y/N hoped she could just get through what the man wanted her to do so she could clean herself. She really felt like she had no choice but to do as he told her, but with his current track record of trying to keep her alive, she felt as if he would uphold his part of the bargain and she would hopefully avoid being mauled by the creature.

“Alright, Y/N,” he spoke over the speakers, the beast growling towards the ceiling. “I still can’t hear you, but this entire encounter will be recorded for future playbacks. Now, once you hear me say “go,” I wish for you to make the same distressed calls you did in the castle when you were first taken. Understand?”

She nodded in response, sitting upright in her bed and adjusting her arm so it was lying comfortably on her torso. She looked at the mirror and noticed how small she looked in comparison to the thing. It was easily twice her height and judging by the fangs it bore at her. She couldn’t understand why the beast was so hot and cold, one moment it backed away from her in fear, and the next moment it tried challenging her and acted aggressively. Y/N waited for the man to give her the command so she could be out of this uncomfortable situation and just get her bath.
“Go,” she heard over the speakers after what felt like ages of waiting. She made wary eye contact with the beast and took in a deep breath. She didn’t think she could replicate the exact sounds she made, but she could try her best to sing out of fear and sadness.

With the rawest emotion she could muster, she opened her mouth and sang a long, drawn-out, melancholy note. Back with her pack, she remembered this particular song being sung in her youth at the passing of one of the elder’s children. It was the elder not blood-related to her, but the death shook through the pack and the song was sung in remembrance and in mourning of a harpy lost so young. She wasn’t old enough for the memory of the death to have that big of an impact, but the song did. She couldn’t not remember it, it’s simple notes drawing out to create an eerie, low hymn that reflected the emotion she wanted to express.

The creature’s furry, wolf-like ears twitched as she began singing. She could see his torso tense up and it began to struggle against its chains. The beast wanted to move away from the noise, trying to turn or use his tied-up hands to cover his ears. When it realised there was no way to escape, it began to panic. It whimpered and thrashed, trying to escape its bonds to flee the situation.

Y/N tried to keep up the singing, but it was getting tiresome. She still needed to regain some lost energy, after all. The anxiety of the beast locked in the room with her didn’t help either. As she watched in awe of her own song’s effects on the monster, Heisenberg sat on the other side of the mirror. He wasn’t listening in on the whole situation, but he could clearly see the sorrowful look on Y/N’s face and how the Lycan was reacting to it.

“Amazing,” he said in awe to himself, frantically trying to take notes as well as take in the scene in front of him with his own eyes. He could see the Lycan snarling and violently jerking to escape the chains to no avail. Her voice could be used as a weapon to control the emotions of the Lycan, and he wondered if there were ways she could completely incapacitate it and prevent it from acting out its commands.

As Y/N continued, her voice began to have less of an effect and while the Lycan was still distraught, it was able to calm down a bit and go slack against its chains in exhaustion.

Heisenberg stopped his writing as nothing new of note happened. Y/N’s breathing was heavy as she put the last of her remaining energy into her sorrowful, frustrating song. She felt lightheaded at the exertion and had to rest against the bed. Her arms involuntarily flexed and she could feel her wings twitch.

“Is everything alright?” Heisenberg asked over the P.A system and Y/N just looked at the mirror with a blank expression for a response. She hoped it was a sufficient response for him and that he was done with this little experiment. He got what he wanted, she sang and got his strange monster to lash out. Now she wanted him to take it away and allow her to bathe. Her eyes were watery, and she was ready for everything to be over. Mechanical whirring could be heard and the door once again opened, the beast's ears perked up and it turned its attention to the door.

“I’ll take that as you’re done, for now,” Heisenberg’s voice boomed, now being in the same room as the harpy. Y/N turned to meet his gaze and bored into his eyes, feathers beginning to ruffle as Heisenberg approached her. He stopped in his tracks, and Y/N’s wings calmed down. The beast that was momentarily forgotten about whimpered, and Heisenberg turned his attention towards it. The chains incapacitating the beast flew off of it, and it was free to move around.

“Off with you now, mutt,” Heisenberg barked at him, the beast quickly scurrying out of the cell and leaving the man and the harpy in the room alone. Y/N slowly turned her head back towards Heisenberg, her movements slow and weak.

“Now, about that bath…”

Chapter Text

It would still be a while before Y/N would have her bath. Heisenberg assured her he would follow up on his end of the bargain, but he wanted to finish the antibiotic injections so he wouldn’t have to reinsert the IV line again. Y/N begrudgingly went through with letting the fluids finish streaming through her veins

She tried her best to wait patiently, but it felt like it took forever. She sat in silence as time passed forward ever-so-slowly, and Heisenberg took it upon himself to bring in a larger, more commercial bed into the cell instead of the gross old hospital cot he had the harpy sleeping on. It was a gesture that Karl thought was innocent enough.

“Your comfort is still an important factor in experimentations,” Karl stated as strange men in silver armour carried the bed in. “If you still want to continue with the experiments, that is…” he continued, nervously rubbing the back of the neck. He didn’t know how to proceed with that, the whole experimenting thing.

Y/N had obviously been under severe stress during the experiment, and Heisenberg knew she was uncomfortable about the whole concept of it. But this was something he couldn’t not further investigate into. With his track record of experimenting and science and breakthroughs, he couldn’t not grow fascinated at this creature that had practically fallen right into his lap. It was only fair that she could get a somewhat comfortable place to sleep.

“I guess I don’t even know if your folk sleep on regular beds,” Karl mumbled, avoiding eye contact to make the situation any more awkward. Y/N stayed silent, still too scared to use her voice in case there were any adverse effects that would cause him to attack her. She wanted to avoid getting harmed, and she thought that she was doing a good job so far. At least, on the bigger scale.

“Um, well… The transfusion should be done, now.” Heisenberg explained, inspecting the tube that was pushing the fluids into her veins. While his posture and stance around her still showed wariness, he was still relaxing a bit, beginning to get used to talking to her. She had shown no desire so far to use this voice against Heisenberg in any way, even though she was capable of most likely causing harm. “I’m going to take that needle out, now.”

Y/N craned her neck towards him swiftly, a little worry in her eyes.

“Oh, uh, don’t worry. It shouldn’t hurt. Besides, you can’t really bathe yourself with that stuck in your arm.” Y/N nodded slowly in response, some of the feathers around her shoulders ruffling uncomfortably as caked blood began to break from the movement.

“Okay,” Karl responded, nodding to match hers so they could come to a very clear conclusion on what was going to happen. A metallic tray had rolled on its own up beside Heisenberg and he picked up a little package off of it. “Now, you might bleed a bit… I’m sure my technique isn’t the cleanest. But I’m right here with this piece of gauze to put pressure on it and bandage it up.”

Y/N followed his words as he moved over to face her. He ripped up the little package and took out the piece of gauze. Y/N made eye contact with Heisenberg, staring confidently with a touch of loneliness. Heisenberg took a moment to look back, admiring the vibrancy behind her (e/c) eyes. He then quickly diverted his gaze, not wanting to be caught in this strange moment of vulnerability with the creature.

Creature, he had to remember. A completely different species than me. Different anatomy, different… parts?

He cleared his throat and mentally slapped himself in the face to drag him out of his thoughts. He pretended the intimate eye contact they had just shared never happened, and he turned his attention once again back to the gauze in his hands.

“Alright,” he said, more just speaking aloud to hype himself up for the removal rather than to assure Y/N. “Just gonna undo this tape…” Heisenberg had replaced his old leather gloves with latex medical gloves. Hopefully, she didn’t have a latex allergy. Maybe he should’ve thought about that beforehand

To be fair, in hindsight, he only really ever had the creature’s best intentions in mind. For the most part, at least. He didn’t have reason to hurt her, and he certainly didn’t have any true desire to. Sure, he may have placed a few subtle and not-so-subtle threats of what he could do, but Heisenberg began to hope it never truly would have to come down to it. She seemed to be content with not overstepping her boundaries, though.

He thought back to when she had suddenly lashed out on him earlier, biting his hand enough to draw blood. He had to bandage it up in his office later, cleaning it out and silently hoping these creatures didn’t carry any serious bloodborne diseases. There was just too much for Karl to currently dwell on at once, so he just pushed it to the back of his mind in case that information would be needed later.

Karl struggled to take the medical tape off with the gloves around his fingers. Once he got the edges of it lifted, Y/N hissed at the sudden sting of the tape being torn off her skin. He didn’t know how to go about pulling out the needle and the tape without making it extremely uncomfortable for her. He’d have to make it quick.

He quickly tugged up on the tape to remove it as fast as possible. Strangely enough, the creature had a mammalian sprinkle of hair across her arms, which had stuck to the strong adhesive of the medical tape and made it more painful and awkward to pull off. Y/N gasped and then squawked in pain, making Heisenberg’s ears ring. He reared back, groaning in pain and both physically and mentally preparing himself to fight back if needed.

But there wasn't enough commotion after the harpy shrieked that called for him to fight back. He let the creature quickly let out its noise, awaited for further escalation, and when there was none, he quickly made the move to take out the needle in one swift motion along with all the medical tape.

His hands awkwardly fumbled and the needle inside her vein sharply bent at an uncomfortable angle within her. She gasped at the painful distortion of the thin piece of metal, but she refrained from crying out again, knowing her silence would get this uncomfortable encounter over with sooner.

Karl quickly gathered the tape and ungracefully pulled out the needle that was bent slightly within her vein and hoped it wouldn’t cause too much trauma to her limb. Karl didn’t have to worry too much about severing the veins of his cadavers, but this subject was living. Keeping the blood flow within the body stabilised was not something he needed to consider most of the time.
Y/N clenched her teeth as the whole thing was removed, blood beginning to spurt out of the hole in her arm where the needle was. Karl quickly placed the needle and tape on the tray where he would dispose of it later and hastily moved to put pressure on the bleeding hole in the harpy’s body. He took the gauze and pushed his gloved index and middle finger down where the IV was placed in her inner elbow. Once the pressure was on, he studied the creature’s face to check up on it.

“Sorry,” he mumbled when she made eye contact with him, frightened and still rushing with adrenaline from the pain. He didn’t know what he was apologizing for more, causing her pain or getting caught staring at her again. It must’ve been a vulnerable position for her, and he didn’t want to exploit that.

Damnit, why was he suddenly feeling so much empathy and pity for the thing? Why did he care so much about sparing its feelings?

Karl’s never experienced a truly authentic friendship. The closest he has to friends are his siblings Donna and Salvatore. But Donna still freaked him out, and she was too child-like to hold a full, intellectual conversation, and he only ever first interacted with Moreau out of pity. If you could get past his disgusting voice and ugly visage, he was a decent guy to hang around. They both shared a love for fishing, which Karl always considered odd since Moreau technically was a fish.

“Can I bathe, now?” The creature spoke up, startling Heisenberg. He accidentally let go of the gauze that was keeping blood from becoming a projectile stream. Karl hadn’t expected her to speak, especially so nonchalantly. He thought that she was content to stay in her own silence for her own safety, but she displayed confidence with her voice.

He caught the grip on the gauze again, slowly lifting it up to inspect the area of entry. It was still bleeding, but not as much. It would be safe to remove the intense pressure from it, and he picked up another piece of medical tape to secure the gauze on her arm.

“Do you think you can stand?” Karl asked her, standing back from her and giving her personal space. “It’s a bit of a walk.” Y/N shifted her body and sat up, stretching her arms and presumably trying to stretch her wings, but stopping midway through because of how hard the caked blood was. She looked back at Heisenberg pathetically, sighing and swinging her legs to hover over the ground.

“I can try,” Y/N replied meekly, and her taloned feet hit the cold stone of the floor and she hissed. Her hiss made Karl back up slightly, almost as if some invisible force had pushed him back. “My voice really affects you like that, huh?” She asked quietly, keeping her tone neutral. The corners of her mouth upturned.

“Don’t get too cocky about it, sweetheart,” Karl assured her, stepping closer and towering over her. She may be a human-sized bird, but she was still shorter than Heisenberg. “I could still slam a piece of sharp metal into your jugular faster than you could shake your tailfeathers.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, you old man,” she snidely remarked, trying to steady herself upright. “Wouldn’t want to waste my newly found ability on the likes of you.”

Karl laughed in response. Not as if it was a witty response, just because the picture of her somehow overpowering him made him laugh. The fact that she could even think that, that was what was funny to Heisenberg. However, he didn’t instigate it further. He took a moment to admire the bravado of the beast but also had to make sure it knew who was in charge.

“You want your bath or not, sweetheart?” Heisenberg threatened, offering his arm out to help the harpy stand.

“I can stand on my own, thank you,” she replied stubbornly, attempting to fully stand on her two talons. She immediately toppled backward back onto the bed and huffed out in annoyance, a stray feather flying out of her hair. She looked up to Heisenberg standing over her, holding his arm out.

“You sure about that?” he asked again, grinning impishly. She huffed again, taking his arm hesitantly as he helped her to stand up straight. She tried to support herself but ended up falling against Heisenberg’s shoulder. Her legs began to buckle.

“Easy there, sweetheart,” Karl spoke lowly, trying his best to support her without holding her too harshly. She grumbled under her breath, feathers shifting slightly almost seemingly out of annoyance as Heisenberg began to walk with her to the exit of the holding room.

Y/N found it hard to adjust her eyes to the bright lights of the halls in the factory. She was suddenly jealous of the shades Heisenberg had on, they must’ve blocked out that light for him. The harpy noticed that the rest of the facility she was in was just as dirty as her cell. At least she wouldn’t have to be worried about receiving special treatment.

They walked for a few minutes, Y/N’s arm and wing propped on Heisenberg’s broad back so she wouldn’t lose her balance. It was a quiet walk, the only soundtrack for their journey being a low, steady hum that was almost making Y/N’s ears ring, and a metallic whirring that oddly made her feel at peace.

There were strangely none of the beasts that Y/N had just encountered earlier. She thought they would be infesting the place, with how Heisenberg made it sound, that is. Probably just some scare tactic of his, she thought.

They finally made their way to a room at the end of a narrow hallway. The big, heavy door opened on its own and allowed entry for the man and the harpy. They both walked into the room at the same time, Y/N clipping her wing on the side of the entryway.

“Watch yourself,” Karl warned, like scolding a little child. Y/N spotted the big wooden tub that would presumably be where her bath was taking place. There was no water in it, but there was a hose attached to the wall.

“It’s not much,” he began to speak. “But it’s the best I can offer you to clean up.” He gestured to the tub.

“Here,” he said, helping Y/N to lean up against the wall so he could grab a stool. He pulled it over so she could sit. “I’ll fill it up for you…”

The harpy sat on the stool and watched Heisenberg as he got to work filling the tub. He tried to adjust the temperature of the hose as best as he could, not wanting to accidentally freeze or boil the creature. Hopefully, the hot water tanks were working, the least he could do was offer her a warm bath.

Y/N watched as the wooden tub slowly filled up, her jaw beginning to unclench at the thought of submerging her body in the water. Heisenberg stood by as it filled, the thick atmosphere making it so he didn't want to initiate conversation. The awkward silence lasted until the tub was completely full, and Heisenberg began to help Y/N over to the tub.

She hobbled over to the tub as best as she could with Heisenberg’s help, and she eagerly swung her legs over the side and dipped her claws into the water. She exhaled in contentment as her feet became submerged. She only let her legs in as she leaned up against the tub to get used to the water. It was still a bit warm for her.

“I suppose you’ll need soap or something,” Heisenberg postulated. Did he even have soap? Normally he just harshly scrubbed at his own body, and he would die before he told anyone about his moisturizing products that he had stolen from Castle Dimitrescu. He decided he’d check the cupboards of his private quarters anyway, just in case.

While Heisenberg stepped away to get supplies, the harpy sunk further into the water, sighing in relief as the water hit her wings. Her feathers began to unstiffen. And the water quickly began to turn red, days worth of dried-up blood finally being removed from her delicate feathers and hair.

She was now neck-deep in the tub, tilting her head back to let her hair fully submerge underwater. It felt so good, to be in the water and to rid herself of all the gunk stuck to her.

She suddenly felt less hopeless, like this situation wouldn’t guarantee her death. With how things were going, and with how Heisenberg had been treating her, she might just survive this.

She didn’t know how, but maybe she could.

Then she thought about her family.

It was luck, really, that Y/N hadn’t instantly been killed by the first humans who laid eyes on her. She didn’t know where her family went and what happened to them, but surely if humans stumbled upon them, they would not be given the same chances and luck that Y/N was given.

She thought about her little brother, still so small and fragile. He was only a little boy, barely able to fly off the ground for a few moments. He wouldn’t have been able to fly very far.

She thought about his sweet little face and big eyes staring back up at her, so much wonder and innocence in them.

She thought about what would’ve happened to him if humans had stumbled upon him. He wouldn’t stand a chance, and Y/N couldn’t bear to think of it any further. She knows what would've happened to him. It wasn’t pretty, not like she had believed this world to be when she was younger. She knew now that she was wrong, though.

She then remembered she wasn’t in the luscious and sunbathed hot springs close to her home nest, she was in a tub in some random human building. She was only a specimen to be studied and if she disobeyed, completely dissected. That hopeless feeling sunk in again.

Heisenberg returned with a little bar of soap that had been given to him as a gift from Donna a few years back. It was still in its little cardboard wrapping, but its scent was pine. Surely the harpy would like that, Heisenberg thought. It’s why he brought it back to her.

When he entered the room, he saw Y/N hunched over in the tub, completely wet and sobbing grossly.

“I, uh- brought you some soap,” Heisenberg awkwardly said, moving forward cautiously to offer it to her.

Y/N glanced back, tears streaming down her face as her eyes bore into his with an angry glint. She wanted to lash out at him, but she had to remember that this man wasn’t like the normal humans, he could fling metal around with his mind.

“Please… leave,” she spoke quietly, all shyly with no confidence whatsoever.

“Yeah, sure, um? I’ll just leave this here so you can use it…” Heisenberg said, setting the soap on the side of the tub.

“I said LEAVE,” Y/N repeated, and Heisenberg looked at her in shock and backed up.

The same fire and confidence that Karl had earlier commended came back, and Heisenberg had to remember to keep control of the situation as he didn’t want it to escalate too far. They still didn’t know what she was fully capable of with her voice.

But there were no immediate adverse effects that Heisenberg could feel, not like the other outbursts of sudden noise. It was almost like it was controlled like she wanted to shout to show him she could just shout.

It made him glint at her mischievously, almost daring her to continue yelling at him to leave. But she didn’t, she only sunk back in the tub. He smirked, accepting the creature's submission again. He might’ve been in charge, but he still admired and maybe even had been entranced by that fire.

“I’ll be waiting for you to finish up outside,” Karl said, gesturing to the door. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He left the room, leaving Y/N completely alone and feeling naked in the tub, even though her feathers covered most of her up. She felt vulnerable like she didn’t even know what she was fighting for anymore.

She picked up the soap and inspected it.

Pine

She figured if the strange metal-controlling man had a signature scent, it would be pine. She placed it back down, scoffing at herself for thinking like that. The man was her captor.

And she was the captive.

Chapter Text

It was nice to finally be clean.

Y/N took her time in the bath, even after the little mental breakdown. She spent a lot of time washing out her wings and feathers with the pine-scented soap that Heisenberg had given her. While she was reluctant about using it at first, thinking it was almost comical, she was still grateful for it. Plus, she had to admit, it smelled really nice.

She began to wonder if that’s what Heisenberg smelled like.

She stopped herself from thinking further than that, the idea of Heisenberg’s signature scent being ridiculous to her. But still, the soap smelled really nice.

When she was done scrubbing all the dirt, grime, and blood out of her wings and off of her skin, she did take a while to just soak. Unfortunately, the water was pretty dirty by the time she felt scrubbed down enough. It didn’t stop her from soaking, but eventually, she still had to have Heisenberg come in to refill the tub and change the water.

The harpy had awkwardly stood aside while the man came in and put on a display of his strength by turning the tub over so it could drain out into a drain located in the middle of the room. She blushed as he effortlessly stood the tub up on its side so the water could quickly be changed. He set it back up and began refilling it with the hose.

“Thank you,” Y/N said in appreciation of his gesture. She suddenly felt bashful. “Thanks for doing this…” She tilted her head down, smiling slightly.

When she spoke, Heisenberg felt at ease. Like hearing the birds pleasantly chirping first thing in the morning, Y/N’s voice filled Heisenberg’s senses with a feeling of relaxation and appreciation. His head even began to feel floaty, the sweet undertones in her voice ringing throughout his skull pleasantly, almost overwhelmingly so. He had to step back a bit, his headspace being a little too out of his control for his liking.

“Yeah, no problem, I guess,” Heisenberg responded, looking at the creature in awe at its mysterious effect on him. He decided not to press further, and let the harpy continue to finish her bath.

When he was alone in the hallway, he cursed to himself. This was so dangerous, to have this creature around with this kind of influence on emotions and just have it freely wandering the factory. If only she knew, really. If only she could find that true potential of her powers within her, who knows what she could be capable of.

Not to mention he had to deal with Miranda. Shit, how was he going to get his way out of that one? He still owed her a body part, and he was willing to bet the creature would be opposed to just giving him one.
“AH, hssh,” Heisenberg heard the harpy shriek. He swiftly opened the door and swung his head inside to see what made the harpy react like that. He didn’t have time to dwell on why protecting her was his first reaction and not responding with hostility, but all he wanted was to find whatever was threatening the creature to put an end to its cries.

“Is everything okay in here?” Heisenberg inquired, trying to keep his voice neutral and collected.

“Yeah, sorry,” Y/N assured, slightly out of breath. Her eyes were widened, and her expression was pained. “Just… my arm. It’s really sore…” she exasperated.

“Yeah, it wasn’t placed the best. It’ll probably be sore and become bruised,” Heisenberg assured her, inspecting her arm. Shit, that didn’t look very good. Sure, he expected a fair bit of bruising. But this was a bit excessive, and the swelling was too much for his comfort zone.

“Don’t worry, just let me know if it gets any worse,” Heisenberg decided to lie. Shit, shit, shit. Did he have any more antibiotics to stop a gruesome infection like this? Fuck, he might actually have a corpse to present to Miranda if he doesn’t figure it out.

Sure, it would’ve been easier to just let the creature die. He wouldn’t have to worry about harbouring a fugitive anymore, and he could present a piece to Miranda and be on with his life. He could continue using his clumsiness as an excuse as to why the creature died under the knife, but something stopped him from taking the easy way out.

Maybe it was pity, maybe empathy, maybe even his scientific instinct to preserve, but he didn’t want to let the harpy die. He was feeling particularly generous, perhaps. It was no matter why, it was only how. Who knows how long the infection has been festering. Fuck, she’s lucky she hasn’t developed sepsis, yet.

But the sweet sound of her voice all hopeful and calmed was worth the not-so-white lie. It was like her being lulled into a sense of security also lulled him into one. It felt like when she talked, everything was going to be okay. Even though he knew it wasn’t going to be okay, the therapeutic tone of her own assurance made him think it was.

Heisenberg offered her a small, sincere smile and once again took his exit. The smile immediately dropped off his face as the door shut behind him. He nervously threaded his fingers through his hair, noticing a few stray strands coming out. His potential receding hairline aside, Karl had to think fast.

He let the harpy finish her bath before once again inspecting the wound on the arm. It didn’t appear to be getting any worse, at least. Maybe the swelling would naturally go down, and maybe it only showed up as some weird side-effect of her being half mammal, half-bird. He’d just have to keep watch on it.

Y/N had found some of her strength to lift herself out of the tub, her wings even extending slightly. That had to be a good sign, right? She was recovering strength and energy and appeared to be moving around much better now that she was clean. Maybe her arm was nothing to worry about.

“So, what now?” Y/N drawled, again making Heisenberg’s head spin. Her attitude was lackadaisical and confident, and it was almost tangible in her voice.

“Sweetheart, I’m sorry-” Karl said abrasively, holding his arm up and putting his face in his other hand. “Your voice, it’s- Even when your emotions are positive, it affects me,” Heisenberg told her as sincerely as he could muster. He didn’t want the creature to take it the wrong way.

“That neutral tone, the one you were doing before,” He began. “Can you do that again?”

Y/N nodded slowly in response, blushing in embarrassment. She felt foolish, even though it was out of her control to make him feel things or not. She didn’t want to push him any further, fearing another outburst. The harpy liked the mutual thing they had going on, the banter they shared, and the dynamic that was brought between them. It was almost starting to feel like a friendship, but that would be too good to be true. Y/N had to remind herself not to be naive.

“Sorry, it’s not that I don’t want to hear you talk or anything,” Heisenberg added, but then realized how that could be taken the wrong way. “No, wait, shit- I mean.”

Fuck! Why was he suddenly acting like a little schoolgirl talking to his crush for the first time? Why couldn’t he act normally?

Why could he not speak with his normal charisma and cadence? Where was the charm that he oozed? It clearly had evaded him. He’d never experienced anything like this.

Sure, his emotions and experiences were only limited to what he’s endured during his long life in the village, but surely there wasn’t some new emotion coming into play that he’d never experienced before.

But then it hit him.

Adoration.

Or you could even call it a silly little crush since this was his first time ever developing feelings even remotely similar to affection. He still wasn’t entirely sure yet of his own emotions, but it was the only thing he could conjure up.

It made him feel like a child, that his entire demeanor and reputation that he’s built up for decades would crumble instantaneously all because a young, strange human-like creature with wings was dropped onto his doorstep. Then he thought about it more, the whole decades thing. How old even was she? She couldn’t have been that old, at least she didn’t look too old. But neither did he, at least for his age. He may look like an average middle-aged man, but in reality, he’s lived a full lifetime and then some.

Unbelievable, he was catching such frivolous feelings for a creature who wasn’t even the same species as him, not that he was even human himself, per se. But this could put impede his work, and he never lets anything come before his work.

“I’ll bring you back to your room,” Heisenberg decided on saying. He wouldn’t push the conversation further and would move on with his day, business as usual. The harpy nodded, wings insecurely folding around herself as she began to follow Heisenberg back to her cell.

She walked behind him, the pace just a little too slow for her liking, but she didn’t feel like stepping it up or pushing anymore. Did she say something? What was with the sudden attitude he was giving her? More importantly, why did she care so much about what he thought about her? Again, she had to remind herself that she was a captive.

Sure, their dynamic had been progressively getting friendlier over time, and Y/N was given more freedoms than she first initially thought she would, but maybe that’s just because of how utterly hopeless she truly would be against him. But if she was so hopeless, why did he act as her voice affected him that much? Why would he not constantly want to control her voice and make sure he wouldn’t leave himself vulnerable.

The walk was awkward, the silence thick. Y/N solemnly walked back into her cell and Heisenberg stood at the door, his arms crossed intimidatingly. She went to sit at the edge of the new bed that Heisenberg brought in earlier. She looked at the sheets, noticing that they must’ve previously been white, but must’ve been so old that its colour was now an unsettling cream colour. It was still nicer than her previous accommodations.

Heisenberg cleared his throat to get the harpy’s attention.

“I have some work to do,” he began. “So you’ll just need to sit tight while I take care of that.”

Y/N nodded, her wings folding around herself as she got comfortable.

“What kinds of things do you eat?” Heisenberg asked, remembering to at least cater to her most basic needs. “I don’t want you to starve on me.”

“Um,” Y/N started, still not knowing if it was fully okay to talk. She remembered to keep her voice neutral. “I forage, mostly… My pack always foraged. We had a garden space, but wild plants were good too.” Y/N began reminiscing of the garden, eating freshly grown cherry tomatoes right off the vine. They were her favourite, the sweetness reminding her of the human food “candy” she had once tried.

“Oh, yeah,” Y/N said abashedly, realising she got caught up in her own thoughts for a moment. “As for the things I eat? Fruits, vegetables. Lot’s of roots, too. And nuts, we still need lots of protein like humans,” she explained. Humans may have had more resources, but harpies were familiar with basic science.

“Alright, I’ll be sure to look around and see if there’s anything suitable,” Heisenberg stated nonchalantly, trying to act as if her hunger had meant nothing to him. Meanwhile, in Heisenberg’s head, he really hoped he had something to give to the harpy as he knew it must’ve been a while since she ate. “In the meantime, you stay here,” he ordered, trying as hard as possible to stay stern. It was normally something that came so naturally to him, intimidation, but he was struggling.

He decided to leave without saying anything else, leaving the harpy alone as the door closed behind him. He began to make his way towards his private quarters. The harpy wasn’t the only one who hadn’t eaten much lately. He decided to make himself a quick bowl of refried beans and scarfed it down swiftly. He sat at his desk with the intention of reviewing some new blueprints, but he couldn’t. His mind kept wandering to the harpy, and he decided to sift through his pantry for something he could give to her.

He found a leftover stew in the minifridge of his quarters. He nuked it on the old microwave he was pretty sure was from the 60s. Nothing a little of his tinkering couldn’t solve, of course. That doesn’t mean the material hadn’t degraded, though. He made his way to the harpy’s quarters with the dish and presented the food to her.

“I know it’s not much,” he spoke as a metal tray rolled in beside him. He put the old ceramic bowl on it. “But I most likely was going to let it go to waste and it’s probably the best food I have.”

“Thank you,” Y/N appreciated, voice flat. “It smells nice.”

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Heisenberg replied bashfully. “It’s a recipe from my brother, but I don’t really cook much.” Why the fuck did he even say that? What suddenly compelled him to share that information?

“You have a brother?” Y/N further inquired, her voice sincere but neutral. “Tell me about him.”

Might as well keep talking, then.

“Well, not my real brother, really,” he continued, the words just coming out of his mouth almost out of his control. “More like someone I was raised alongside with.”

“Hm,” the harpy tonelessly hummed. “Any other siblings?”

“Two sisters. Same as the brother, though. Not actually blood siblings…” Why was he still talking?

“So no blood relatives?” she asked, her tone a bit quizzical this time and losing its neutrality. Heisenberg cleared his throat.

“N-not that I know of,” he stuttered. “I don’t really remember or know any of that stuff.” Why was everything suddenly echoing?

“Not even your birth parents?” her questioning continued, head cocked like a puppy. Enough was enough.

“Now what gives you the impression that you’re allowed to ask me about my life story?” Heisenberg snipped at her, becoming undazed from his trance-like state.

“Sorry,” Y/N quickly apologised. “Just thought since I had overshared some personal stuff earlier…”

“Thought we could sit down together, have a hot meal, and share our tragic backstories, huh?” Heisenberg retorted condescendingly.

“Nothing like that, Sir, I s-swear,” the harpy stuttered in defense. She didn’t have any ill will.

Heisenberg “tch’d” at that. “What makes you think you even deserve my sob story, huh?”

“Might as well get to know the man holding me hostage,” Y/N snarked. Why did she have to be so difficult, Heisenberg thought. Though that fire and spark were a part of the reasons as to why he was so drawn to her in the first place.

“Just eat your food,” Heisenberg spat back. He had the intention of leaving the room so the harpy could eat, but something caught his eye.

“Your arm, girl,” Heisenberg pointed. “Why didn’t you tell me it got worse?”

The harpy shrugged. “I hadn’t really noticed it,” she replied, seemingly unconcerned. “It’s not really painful, or anything. Plus you said it was supposed to bruise…”

Bruised was an understatement. The edges of her fingertips were necrosing. How could she not feel the pain more? If her IV site had gotten infected, surely she would feel more pain? Not to mention the swelling, a large egg-shaped black bump was visible and ugly on her inner elbow. It looked as if her veins were pulsing through it. Shit.

“Is it numb, at all?” Heisenberg asked blankly. He didn’t want to scare her, not just yet.

“A little, I guess…” She sat up, looking forward to eating her steaming meal.

“Can you try to move it?” Y/N had the intention of using her arm to pick up the spoon in the bowl of stew, but she couldn’t. She felt a sharp, blinding pain strike up her arm and she shrieked in response, making Heisenberg cover his ears.

“Sorry,” Y/N immediately apologised, noticing his very pained reaction to her voice.

“It’s alright,” Heisenberg responded, shaking his head and hoping to get the ringing to stop. “Let me look at this.” He moved in on her, gently pressing his gloved fingertips on the side of her arm. He could see the sheen of what he assumed was sweat and pus come off on the dark leather. This was not good.

There looked to be fluid buildup all around the IV site, he’d seen it before in post-mortem subjects. He didn’t fully know if it would mean it, but he was pretty sure botched IV sites on living subjects could require amputation, as the tissue below the site would soon be completely dead. This is what he got for inserting the IV line on the inner elbow, what a stupid idea that was.

“You’ve looked, can I eat now?” Y/N asked sarcastically.

“No,” Heisenberg replied blankly. If she needed emergency surgery, eating beforehand could cause her to aspirate. “Not yet.”

“Excuse me?” The harpy responded accusatorily, not expecting that answer.

“Hush, girl,” Karl shushed, further prodding at her arm. It made Y/N hiss in pain at every slight touch.

“What’s wrong?” She asked in concern, her voice raising an octave in slight fear. He couldn’t have that.

“Do you trust me, Y/N?” Heisenberg asked, his tone sincere and serious. Y/N’s eye widened. She slowly shook her head.

“I’ll be honest… No…” Y/N said, voice just above a whisper.

“I like your honesty,” Heisenberg commended. “Truth be told, I don’t really trust you much, either.” He stood up, dramatically removing his leather gloves and putting them in his signature coat’s jacket. “But you’re worth more to me alive than dead.” Y/N cringed at that, not wanting to think of herself as some perverted treasure for the strange man.

“Am I dying?” Y/N quietly asked, trying to keep herself composed.

“Not immediately,” Heisenberg half-lied. He didn’t really know how fast it would progress. “But if you don’t get help, you might.”

“What help would I need?” She inquired, slightly dreading the answer she would get.

“Well, there’s something I can do,” Heisenberg started. “But… I need you to trust me.” He took off his glasses to look her in the eyes, offering her a genuine moment of vulnerability. She slowly nodded.

“Okay,” she concluded, tears filling the corners of her eyes. “I- I trust you.” Karl nodded back at her and put his glasses back on.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait to eat your food,” he quietly spoke, the reality of what he was about to do setting in. The harpy understood and pushed the tray away from her, longingly looking once into the bowl. She had to admit, it looked good.

Heisenberg had the harpy change into a surgical gown, though it was more of a formality and tool to keep her clean as her feathers covered up her modesty. She postulated out loud how ridiculous and impractical the large gap at the back was. Karl laughed at the innocent remarks.

He rolled in a brand new medical cot and asked the harpy to lay down on it. It had fresh sheets, though they were stiff and smelled awful. It was such an unnatural scent, the harpy noticed.

“This room won’t be sterile enough,” Heisenberg talked to himself out loud. It wouldn’t be conducive to what he had planned. Y/N had no idea what he was talking about. Her knowledge of the word “sterile” related to her species reproducing, so she wondered what it meant in a human context. Heisenberg sighed, walking over to the cot Y/N was laying on and holding straps in his hands.

“What are those?” Y/N panicked, trying to sit up but her arm bringing her back down. It hurt any time she moved too suddenly, and the bump was beginning to grow.

“Y/N, relax,” Karl spook smoothly, genuinely trying to calm her down. “Remember what I said, okay? I need you to trust me.” Y/N hesitantly nodded and Heisenberg set to work and began binding her arms and wings down. He was gentle with the affected arm but still had it in restraints. “We’re just going for a little walk, now.”

Heisenberg began rolling her out of the cell and down the halls of his factory. She know he was capable of making the stretcher roll on its own, but he continued rolling it by hand until he got to some random room in the maze of hallways. It was white, blindingly white. There was a big light in the middle of the ceiling, and shelves and lockers lined all the walls.

“I don’t have much prep time,” Heisenberg gesticulated, and Y/N’s bed had rolled on its own to the middle of the room right under the large light. She had to close her eyes and turn her head away from it. “Shit,” he muttered to himself before she swear he heard him leave the room. After what felt like ages, Heisenberg swiftly ran into the room again, this time with a book in hand. He set it down on a random medical cart in the room and flipped it open to a specific page. “Here,” he said to himself.

It was a diagram of a proper IV, one that could be set in the harpy’s hand. He would make sure it would be put in right to avoid another infection because this surgery would be really difficult without an IV.

“Okay, I’m going to put another needle in,” Heisenberg told the harpy, at least telling her as he went along.

“Another one?!” She shouted, quickly apologising for being so loud and making Heisenberg flinch. “Isn’t that needle what did this to me in the first place?”

“Perhaps,” Heisenberg acknowledged. “But this time I’ve researched how to do them, and how to do them properly. I promise, Y/N, I’m a very methodical man. But like I said, I need you to trust me,” he finished, approaching the harpy with latex gloves on his hand, and a needle in one and some strange elastic band in another.

He wrapped the elastic band around her good wrist tight, and Y/N squealed while her wings thrashed in response.

“Sorry,” Heisenberg apologised through grit teeth.

“S’fine,” Y/N affirmed, taking a moment to look into his once-again glasses-less eyes. He looked back, offered a quick pitiful smile, and returned to work. He pulled a packet from his pocket, an alcohol wipe. He ripped it open and began rubbing it on the top of her hand, trying to feel for a good vein.

“This one might hurt a little more, but please, I need you to control your sounds. If I make any sudden movements, you might lose your hand.” Funny, considering what he was about to do to her after he put the IV in. Y/N nodded, understanding the stakes. Heisenberg nodded back, and he took the little butterfly needle and slowly inserted it into a good vein he found. The harpy was biting down on her lip so hard she drew blood, but she was at least able to not make any loud noises, meaning the IV was successfully lodged into her vein.

Heisenberg took a quick celebratory moment to himself before he worked on taping it down. He grabbed a saline packet and flushed the IV once. Y/N shivered as she felt the cold fluid spread in her hand.

“Okay,” Heisenberg spoke, and he moved to the other side of the room to bring another tray over. He picked up an oxygen mask and held it in front of Y/N. “I’m going to put this on you, okay? It won’t hurt, I promise.” Y/N trusted him, and Heisenberg secured it on her head and made sure the band wasn’t too uncomfortable in her partially feathered hair.

“Okay, now you might feel a warmness in your hand,” he continued speaking to her, picking up another package of liquid and hooking it up to the IV. He double-checked the name. Propofol, perfect. “Don’t panic, and don’t fight against it… I promise, it’ll feel better once you give in.”

That made the harpy’s eyes shoot open, even with the bright light above her. What did he mean? Then she felt it, a burning sensation in her good hand and then through her arm as the fluid he was injecting spread through her veins. Her body jolted, but then she had no more will to fight. Everything felt floaty, and the light began to dim above her. Gas began filling the mask as the harpy was knocked out before she could even register what was happening.

Karl sighed in relief, and then attached a blood pressure cuff to monitor her while she was under. He had a few soldats come in to offer as emotionless assistants to bring him stuff, but this was still going to be hard as a one-man-job. Usually, a team of people was needed to perform these types of things.

Heisenberg removed the oxygen mask from her head and picked up the tube to insert it down her windpipe to keep the anaesthetic flowing. He felt solace in knowing the harpy hadn’t eaten for a while, it was one less thing for him to worry about.

Once the tube was properly lodged in her throat, her vitals were stable and he was sure she was out, he began to prepare his tools. This would certainly be a new experience for him, especially on a subject that was still alive.

At least when this procedure was over, he would have the “trophy” to give to Mother Miranda.

Chapter Text

When Y/N finally came to again, she didn’t have enough energy to panic. She knew she should’ve been panicking. She didn’t know why, but something deep in her gut was telling her she needed to get out of there, and that something was seriously wrong.

Had the man finally double-crossed her and taken her life? Were these her last fleeting moments before the door closed on her life forever? The sudden existential threat made her bolt upright, and she immediately noticed the presence of the IV in her hand. Okay, so she was still at the strange human factory. She tried to remember the last things that happened to her. 

She was in her bed, no, some sort of medical cot. The big bright white light, the sudden darkness. The sharp pain in her arm, the numbness in her other. Loss of sensation and black, dead tissue. The arm that was dying was only now in searing pain, making the harpy let out a loud, undignified scream that echoed throughout the whole factory. It made a few of the Lycans drop to the ground, and it awoke Heisenberg from the nap he had unintentionally begun taking at his desk after the surgery was a success. 

Y/N moved her gaze to inspect the IV she felt in her good hand. It looked fine, but something in her body was yelling at her to get it out . She went to reach out with her bad hand in a feeble attempt to rip it out, but even when there was a searing pain in her bad hand as she tried to reach for the needle in her vein, there was inexplicably no hand.

Or wrist.

Or forearm.

All that was left was her shoulder and the upper half of the top of her arm.

She remembered she had restraints going into her surgery, but she was thankful they were gone. She thrashed her entire body, and the momentum or her good arm pulling away from the IV pole had ripped the IV clean out along with all the tape. She didn’t even feel the sting of it, she only felt a blood trail trickle down her wrist as she began to further freak out. 

At the scream, Heisenberg had immediately jumped out of his seat and cursed himself for his previous state of sleep. How could he have let himself fall asleep while the harpy was in recovery? What if her vitals dropped? It was something he would scold himself for more later, for now, he was more concerned with getting to the harpy and finding the source of its pain. This would be the most difficult part of the procedure, even though he had operated on her for almost 13 hours straight to complete all the little intricacies. 

He ran to the room he left Y/N to recover in and he was suddenly blindsided by a sharp pain that he immediately presumed were the talons of the harpy’s sharp-clawed feet. Sure, he knew it would do no real damage, but it still inflicted pain, and that was rare for Heisenberg to experience. 

His ears began violently ringing, swearing that both his eardrums simultaneously burst as the harpy began unleashing its voice's potential on him.

“ YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! YOU ASKED ME TO FUCKING TRUST YOU!? AND YOU REMOVED MY FUCKING ARM !?” That was about all Heisenberg could make out through the excruciating pain of his ears ringing. The harpy began swinging at him with her good arm, blood still running down it since no pressure was put on after the needle was removed, but it was really nothing compared to how her voice was hurting him. She noticed this, but it didn’t stop her from slashing at him with her clawed feet and punching him with her only arm. To her, it was more effective at getting out her frustrations.

Karl seized against the wall and slowly slid to the ground, curling in on himself as he felt two matching trickles coming from both of his ears. Tears filled his eyes, and he began pleading aimlessly for it to just stop .

Y/N noticed and stopped her constant berating and pitiful punching and clawing. Heisenberg was fully on the floor, hugging his knees close to him and crying into them. Not a light cry, full-on sobbing . Had she been the one to utterly destroy this man? Was she the reason, even after just coming out of surgery and running off pure adrenaline, for the man’s breakdown?

“Please, stop…” Heisenberg pitifully whimpered. The man who could magically fling metal around and easily slice into anyone's neck was reduced to a puddle of tears in front of her. Y/N went silent, the initial rush of adrenaline wearing off and making her feel exhausted. She shouldn’t have stood up so fast, she felt really nauseous and dizzy. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologised, suddenly feeling very small. Once he came around and realized what happened, the harpy was sure that he would kill her. This was it, she finally stepped too far and she would face the consequences of her actions. Why did she have to outburst like that?

Heisenberg stopped his tears, the pain slowly beginning to go away. The dull ache in his head persisted, but the initial ringing that made his ears bleed had ceased. He mentally pulled himself together, knowing his next actions would have to be drastic. 

“I wish you would’ve just killed me instead of removing my arm, now I’ll never fly again,” Y/N bitterly spat at him. Heisenberg had no idea how that worked or why her arm would be needed to fly. He’d inquire about that later.

“I’m sorry I didn't see the “do not resuscitate” on your file,” Heisenberg spoke up and stood up from where he previously sat on the ground. He stood tall, above her. He tried to be imposing, but he knew it was slightly redundant since she had just seen him reduced to a sobbing mess. It was a feeble attempt to establish any semblance of dominance he had left when all that was left of it was merely an illusion.

“You think you can just control what you do with me?” She sneered, getting up in his face. It was still laughable, though. Heisenberg had height and weight on her, even with her extra limbs coming out of her back. 

“I only ever had your best intentions in mind,” Karl snapped back, finally finding a facade of confidence to roll into. 

“That doesn’t give you a right to decide what to do with my body!” She screamed. Alright, that was it. Heisenberg hastily grabbed the harpy by the good arm and pulled her in. Before the harpy could shriek anymore, Karl took out the scarf he kept in one of his pockets. He quickly twisted her body around, minding the surgical wounds of her amputation site, and wrapped the scarf hastily around her mouth to keep her from calling out and damaging his poor ears more. 

Since Y/N no longer had her main attack mechanism, she was once again rendered defenseless. Heisenberg had all the advantages, now. He held her by the shoulders, the harpy trying to yell in pain as she felt a hot burning sensation where her arm used to be. Heisenberg tried his hardest to be as gentle as he could, not wanting to put any pressure near any of the stitching. 

“I’m sorry for this,” Heisenberg whispered, his voice having a melancholy lilt that Y/N had never heard from him before. “I just wanted what was best, I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

She heard a “ zip ” felt a stinging in the side of her neck, and she instantly felt the burning sensation travel under her skin and recognized the effects of what was happening to her. She went limp against him, finding no more use in struggling. She knew what was happening to her, she knew her world was slowly closing in again and the random needle that flung at her neck would make her all but dead to the world. After it set in, she was sure she would be killed, a pathetic way for her life to end. 

Left to some weird human to do experiments on, stuck in a dirty factory with horrible monsters and no chance of escape. As her lights went out, all she hoped for was that her corpse wouldn’t be heavily mutilated after death and she would at least be able to know some peace. 

Her wings stopped seizing against his chest and her breathing evened out. When Heisenberg was sure that the harpy was knocked out again, he sighed. He could feel himself choking up and restrained himself from crying further. You’re a man , he told himself, act like one . 

He picked up the harpy bridal style and carried her back to the original room she was staying in. Hopefully, those living quarters would be more comfortable for her and would aid her in her recovery. He felt bad for what he did, but it needed to be done. Maybe the harpy would come around eventually and realize everything he did was for the best. He only ever had her best interest in mind, and if only she could even slightly grasp the emotions that the man felt towards the creature. 

But, alas, the harpy can’t read minds, and Karl can’t communicate his feelings very well. Y/N was laid down on the bed as comfortably as the man carrying her could set her down. He placed a pillow under what was left of the arm he had to amputate, so it could stay propped up. Finally, he placed a fresh blanket on top of her, leaving her alone in the cell to ride out the rest of the sedation. He was sorry it had to come to this, but Karl would only communicate through the P.A from now on. It was just too risky. 

The door locked behind him and he made his way back to his quarters. Fuck, why did it feel like he didn’t do the right thing? At the time, he did, but now he’d given up any potential relationship between them by mutilating the poor girl. Maybe it would’ve been better to just put it out of its misery. No, try to have some humanity for once , Karl scolded himself.

He continued working as usual, for the first time in days actually making progress on the new Soldat blueprint he had in the works for weeks. He went to check in on the harpy a few times, not surprised that she was still knocked out. Her body needed sleep after the adrenaline of their scuffle before was exerted and her body was still trying to adjust to the massive operation she had just undergone.

On his evening visit later that day, the harpy had awoken. She was still in her bed, staring up at the ceiling as her wings cascaded around her elegantly. They were beautiful, Heisenberg silently appreciated. He remembers his hand rubbing up against her feathers during the surgery and he could feel the softness of them even through his latex gloves.

“ I see you’re up again ,” Heisenberg spoke into the P.A system. The harpy jumped at the sudden noise, then turned her head to look towards the one-way window. Her eyebrows narrowed at him through the glass. “ Sorry I had to do that. ” He stayed silent for a moment, pondering what to say. He hoped the harpy took his apology sincerely, but something told him she hasn’t. “ Are you hungry? I’m sure you must be now. ”

Now he’s probably trying to take another limb , Y/N thought to herself. She didn’t want any of the food he was offering her, she hated him. She wanted nothing to do with him. He was her enemy, she wanted him to leave her alone .

“ I’ll go see what I can find you, ” Heisenberg told her before turning off his microphone and walking back to his quarters. There was one serving of the leftover stew he intended to give to her before her surgery, so he decided on reheating that and bringing it to her. She did seem like she was interested in it, after all. He just wanted her to be comfortable.

While he wanted to bring in the bowl by hand, he still felt emasculated from their earlier situation. He decided to send a tray in alone with the bowl perched on top of it. He watched as he slowly rolled in the steel tray and it came up beside Y/N, the bowl of stew still steaming.

Y/N didn’t want to eat it, didn’t want to accept the kind gesture, but she was starving , and the food just looked too good not to eat. It had been forever since she’d had a hot meal, and it soothed an ache that resided deep within her throat, most likely from dehydration and the anaesthetic tube being brutally lodged in her windpipe. Heisenberg couldn’t stop himself by watching as the harpy ate its food with her one hand. It was awkward for her to maneuver at first, but she eventually got the hang of it. 

“ I wonder if the new model of bionic arms I made for the Soldats could be connected to a living subject. ” It was a silly thought, but one he would put in the back of his mind for later. He’d connected human tissue, ligaments, and blood vessels to bionic limbs before, but they were previously dead corpses, their vessels only allowed to walk the earth because Heisenberg could restore those features. 

He began to think his own staring at the harpy as she ate was creepy, so he decided on leaving the room to let the harpy finish eating in privacy. He made his own food in his quarters and continued working deep into the evening. He checked up on the harpy twice throughout the night, but she was sleeping each time. She was finally getting that well-needed rest, so at least Heisenberg could be grateful for that.

She was so peaceful when she slept, her feathers slightly moving with the rise and fall of her chest. Heisenberg didn’t want to sit and stare for too long, but he did find himself quite fascinated. However, she wasn’t very peaceful the next day when Heisenberg went to check on her.

She was awake, aimlessly wandering around the small stone cell. She was trying to stretch her wings out a bit, getting all the ruffles out of her feathers and just correcting her posture and sore muscles from all the uncomfortable circumstances she’s been through.

She tried not to look too much towards her arm, or what was her arm. The harpy truly didn’t want to acknowledge yet that it was gone, and maybe even reality hadn’t fully sunk in for her yet. It was strange, how even though she certainly knew it was gone, she still felt pain surging through it. 

Heisenberg made his presence known over the P.A system, making Y/N jump in surprise like it normally did. Maybe there was a volume knob Karl could turn down somewhere.

“ Sorry for scaring you, ” he said. “ You seem to be moving around better .” Y/N just looked at the mirror in distaste. Heisenberg sighed, not over the P.A system but only to himself. There goes any progress at befriending the harpy he had made over the past few days.

“ There’s still that pen and paper, on the desk, there, ” he informed her “ If you wanted to communicate.” Thankfully he seemed to have amputated her non-dominant arm. The harpy looked at the desk and walked over to it, picking up the pen with her good hand and quickly scribbling on the paper. 

She held it up, the paper simply saying “DIE” in crude handwriting. The harpy flew the notepad across the room and went back to her bed, hoping that maybe she would spur him to act violently and end her miserable hell.

It didn’t, though. Karl simply scoffed before quietly laughing to himself like a madman. He willingly brought this harpy into his territory, let it slink under his skin and pierce his eardrums with its violent shrieks, mutilated its body so it would be impaired for life, and then let her emasculate him that if anybody else had seen how she brought Heisenberg to his knees, he would be shunned from the family forever. Yet here he was,  still was developing feelings for her. 

And now she hated him. At least before, she was even entertaining the idea of being all buddy-buddy. But he ruined any chances with that when he pulled her into a false sense of security and then cut off her arm to try and save her life from an infection he caused. But he supposed it was for the best, there was surely no way he could become romantically involved with one of his experiments , technically. 

Karl turned the P.A system off and left the harpy alone. He didn’t need to add any more stress to her recovery process. Karl thought to himself again… Maybe it would be different tomorrow, and eventually, she’d come around and realize he only ever wanted to protect her. But for a while, that wouldn’t be the case.

Days went by where Karl tried to communicate with the harpy, but she would only rip up or destroy any notepads he’d give her. He decided those things were kind of hard to get since the only source of imported goods was from the Duke, and he no longer tried to give her any. If she wanted to talk, she’d find a way to get his attention. But for now, she clearly didn’t want it.

Heisenberg spent more of his days working, and eventually, his deadline came around.

The deadline for the dreaded Trophy. 

He hated going through the process of preserving it and then taxidermying it. It all felt so dirty like he removed her limb without reason, just for a prize. Thankfully, he was good at preserving decomposition, so even though some of her flesh had been blackened from necrosis, it was preserved nicely for its previous condition. He’d have to restock on embalming fluids, though.

He began making his way to Castle Dimitrescu, Mother Miranda having decided to summon the whole family to look upon the trophy Heisenberg would present them. 

“This is really the best you could do?” Mother Miranda scoffed as she unraveled the blanket the detached limb was wrapped in. It was dark, black, and dead-looking. The fingernails were unfortunately not so preserved, and they had begun to fall off. Alcina had swiftly stood up from her place on her chair, always quick to have any reason to put down her brother. The tall woman pompously laughed at the pathetic excuse for a “trophy” her brother presented to their creator.

“It’s decomposition began fast, frail little thing,” Heisenberg defended, even though that was entirely a lie. 

“Strange how nature created such a powerful creature with such little defenses,” Miranda pondered aloud. “Almost like it would be destined to fail.”

“Maybe if Heisenberg had the competency to-” Lady Dimitrescu started, but she was quickly silenced.

“Enough squabbling,” Miranda simply bellowed and that was enough for everyone in the room to bow their heads down. “That’ll be all from you. Heisenberg, thank you for assuring the creature wasn’t a threat,” Mother Miranda commended, and Karl smugly grinned at Miranda defending him and slightly humiliating the tall bitch in the process. 

“We had a similar sighting about a month before,” Miranda began, simply gesturing to the room and everyone immediately sat down. There were more? “The creature had managed to escape, but this one didn’t. We are upping the security, though. Heisenberg, I entrust you can at least give us a hypothesis on what the creature is.”

“I’ve read up on the native folklore, but I don’t think I can explain it scientifically,” Heisenberg offered, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Hm,” Miranda amused, noticing Heisenberg’s lips pursed tight. “So be it.” Angie could be heard maniacally laughing from her spot on Donna’s lap, pointing at Heisenberg accusingly.

“What are you pointing at, you little twerp!?” Heisenberg yelled, and Angie only laughed louder in response, not being able to get out any words though she tried. He wondered what she knew, and maybe there was a possibility she knew he was lying. But how could she know that?  

“Meeting adjourned,” Miranda announced, everyone becoming quiet again as she gracefully left her spot at the head of the family meeting. Karl averted any eye contact with his siblings and rushed his way out of the castle, not wanting to deal with them at the moment. He just wanted to get back to his factory, these lies were beginning to weigh down on him.

Chapter Text

Days continued to go by at Heisenberg’s factory. The genius machinist himself was able to make some serious progress on his new model of Soldat, and life back at the factory was slowly returning to a somewhat normal state. Besides the addition of the other sentient being in his presence, he tried to continue business as usual. 

But even though on a surface level things seemed to be good, there was still a particular darkness brewing within the factory. As days moved forward, the harpy that was a captive within his factory grew depressed. She felt like she hadn’t felt the sunlight in weeks, or maybe even months . It was hard for her to figure out how much time she had truly been in the darkness. 

Her feathers had begun to fall out in obscene amounts, the vibrant plumage littering the floor of her cell. In place of her old, radiant red and orange, and yellow feathers, duller ones began to grow. They were a warm beige, slowly beginning to melt in with the colour of her mammalian flesh. While the excess of feathers was partially expected, it was moulting season, after all, the colour change was a new one for Y/N. 

Heisenberg hadn’t heard the creature’s voice since the “incident”, she decided from that point forward she didn’t want to use her voice, and any tiny amount of trust she might’ve had in Heisenberg before was gone. She slowly began to resent him, knowing that he was what was standing between her and her potential freedom. 

Any hope she had in finding her family again had depleted. She could no longer bear to think of her little brother, so frail and small and with barely any survival skills. She’d come to terms with the death of her whole pack, really. Realistically, there’s no way they could’ve survived, especially with freaky human villagers scattered everywhere with weird humans who can bend the elements and grow over 10 feet tall. 

All that was left for her was just the dark and dankness of the factory, slowly sucking the life force out of her body and whittling away her will. With no more will and a new burning hatred for her captor, there was nothing really left. The food Heisenberg brought her began to go uneaten, her eyes had sunken in and dehydration lines were prominent on her flesh

He still tried to talk to her, she wish he didn’t. She’d already made it a point to rip up any notepads. It felt humiliating, even though it was her own choice not to use her voice. It was like he was taunting her to talk to him again, taunting her for him to rip away another piece of her flesh. 

Her arm hurt. How it hurt, she didn’t understand. It wasn’t there anymore, how was it continuing to hurt her? She assumed it was some sort of magic he had inflicted on her to prolong her suffering, or maybe her body hadn’t processed the loss of her arm yet. It wasn’t excruciating pain. It was definitely tolerable, but it was still just an annoying persistence that continued to drive her to madness.

But eventually, Heisenberg had to intervene. She was about to enter the second week with almost no food when the inventor turned the microphone back on to talk to her.

“ You need to eat, Y/N ,” he said sternly yet with a hint of apathy. “ You’re severely underweight, I can tell just by looking at you .”

Y/N glared at the glass, her wings wrapping around herself to hide her body from him. She felt self-conscious, having her body scrutinized by him. 

Like I’m his pet bird , she thought. Even her old nest had little canary cages made with grass and straw. Her grandmother kept yellow canaries in these cages. She liked to train them to sing, they were exceptionally good at mimicking. Then she’d tell her tales about other birds who could mimic calls of only a human's voice, and they could speak full words. Parrots, she recalled that they were named.

“Well, how does that make them any different to us?” a younger Y/N had asked her grandmother. She laughed heartily at the child-like naivety.

“They’re not aware, like us,” she went on to explain. Her feathers were mostly black on the top layers of her wings, the underside of them having the same red-orange-yellow gradient that Y/N had. “They cannot hold conservations like you and I, cannot create new thoughts and ideas and then speak them into existence.” 

Yet somehow, she still felt like the domesticated birds that her grandmother told her fables about. If anything, she’d rather be a domesticated animal who can’t think new thoughts or speak new ideas. Things would be a lot less complex. Heisenberg wouldn’t try to interrogate and instigate her. She could just live in blissful ignorance of aimlessly flying around a small cage all day and eating suet. 

“ Hey! Are you listening ?” Heisenberg shouted into the microphone, making her jump. Her wings unfolded instinctually. “ You need to eat. I’ve wasted too many resources on you to let you die. ” 

Don’t you know that’s what I want?

“Goddamn bird, ” she heard him grumble, and the volume of his voice told her that she probably wasn’t meant to hear that and he had accidentally left the microphone on. Especially when he grumbled “ Shit ,” a little louder and then she heard a click. The crude language reminded her of something someone from her pack taught her as a young girl. Her older brother/uncle figure, to be exact. A few years older than her, but not blood-related. He had taught her a crude gesture one day that humans would do to each other, and then he told her the name of it.

Flipping the bird .

She had always wondered how humans communicated with their body language. They have no feathers to ruffle in defence or to smooth back when comfortable. Really, it was an excuse for her pubescent delinquent brother to teach her a crude gesture, but for some reason, that interaction stuck with her. All that it was is holding up the middle finger. 

Why did they call it that? And why was it a crude gesture to humans? It certainly didn’t look like a bird, and it’s not like it looked inappropriate. There was no making yourself bigger to intimidate, no sudden body movements. Worth a shot , she thought. She turned her body towards the glass, trying to picture where he’d be on the other side of it. She held her one arm up in front of her face before curling four of her fingers inwards to her palm and, leaving the middle finger out. 

She left it out for a moment and waited, but nothing happened. She looked at her finger in fascination. Surely it was a myth, then? She didn’t hear any snide remark come from the man. Then the whirring noises of the door opening started. The harpy swiftly stood up from the cot, backing up to the corner of the room. Her wings unfolded instinctively and clumps of feathers fell to the cold stone ground. 

“Look at you,” his voice boomed as he entered the room. His signature knives were following him in, but they were just floating fairly non-menacingly close to his side. “You’re on death’s door.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” he continued. He looked tired. His hair was a mess, tied back in a makeshift rope hair tie. His eyes were just as sunken as hers. “Aren’t you tired of fighting?” She only looked at him in response, her wings lowering and wrapping around her body defensively.

“I’m tired of it, too,” he went on, moving closer to her. Y/N stayed still but gulped. She had nowhere to back up further. Heisenberg stopped moving, noting her body language.

“Listen,” he said quieter, backing up to give her more personal space. He didn’t want to come off as too menacing. “You and I haven’t exactly got off on the right foot.” 

“You mean arm?” Y/N blanky replied. 

“Excuse me?” Heisenberg asked, raising his eyebrow quizically. 

“I mean, my arm. Isn’t it my arm you took off? Y/N asked, keeping her voice quiet and dull.

“No, it’s an expression,” Heisenberg explained, slightly pinching the bridge of his nose to relieve the building pressure in his head. Why did this have to be so hard ?

“Well, it’s stupid,” she stated matter-of-factly. 

“Yeah, I suppose it is,” he humoured her, looking down at her hunched form against the wall. She wasn’t looking back, instead, she was looking away forlornly. He felt a pang in his chest.

“Here,” Heisenberg began to offer, extending his arm towards her.  “I know you’re hungry. I put on a stew for myself earlier and there’s plenty for the two of us. You can come back with me to my quarters.” 

“What’s a quarters?” she asked, looking back and forth between his extended hand and his face.

“My… room, basically.” Her eyes grew wide. 

“Your room?” She questioned in a whisper. “I’m not a human and even I know what that means.”

“No- Ugh… Not my room. More like my hou- er- nest…” Heisenberg tried to defend, but he was digging himself a hole. He sighed, hoping his face wasn’t too red. “It’s just really small, for a human home. So I called it my room.”

“Okay then,” she replied, hesitantly raising her only arm to grab his. Her smaller hand wrapped around his wrist to find purchase, and his hand wrapped around her wrist, swiftly pulling her upwards to stand. She made a slight squawk in response that surprisingly had no effect on Heisenberg. In fact, it only spurred his strength on. She had fallen against his chest when he forgot his own strength and maybe pulled her up a bit too hard. She quickly backed away, trying to find her own footing. Her body felt more imbalanced now that a limb was missing.

“Sorry,” Heisenberg mumbled, letting her wrist go. “It’s just a bit of a walk if that’s okay.” 

“Okay,” she said, and Heisenberg lead her out the door of her cell. He took the lead, walking out into the surveillance area. It was the first time she was able to fully look around the room. The last time she was on a stretcher, tied down, so she couldn’t really see much. But this time, she got to get a full glance at the other side of her strange mirror. He was right, it was indeed a window looking into her cell from the other side. She was fascinated that it could do that, that on one side it was a mirror, and the other was clear glass you were able to look through. 

She continued following him to the main hallways of the factory. Monsters littered the halls that she had been warned about. They snarled and growled at first sight, but as Karl began walking toward them, they backed down defensively. The monsters still showed aggression as she passed, but all Heisenberg had to do was mutter an indiscernible word to them and they would scatter in fear.

Y/N didn’t understand it, Heisenberg was by no means a small man, but these beasts still towered over him and definitely could’ve overpowered him. But they seemed to obey him, even maybe fear him. He was right about one thing, though. She would never be able to navigate these halls alone, and she would’ve been torn to shreds if she didn’t have him as a guide. 

“Sorry about them” he conversated as they walked along. “Just some mutts to keep the village in line.” 

She’d heard stories about the hierarchy of most human civilizations, and how they can be unfair dictatorships with unjust rulers. Maybe Heisenberg was one of them. Why else would he need all these scary monsters around? 

The two continued to walk in silence until he stopped in front of a large wooden door. A key flew up from his coat pocket, inserting itself into the lock. 

“Isn’t the lock made of metal?” Y/N asked, her sudden question surprising Heisenberg.

“Uh, yes,” he answered. 

“You can move metal with your mind, can’t you?” she continued to ask, curiosity piquing. 

“Yes, good observation,” he noted.

“Then… why do you need a key?” her voice had a hint of condescension as she asked. “Can’t you just unlock it with your mind? Move the metal around inside the door?” 

The door opened, and Heisenberg looked down at the harpy blankly. Did she really just question his intellect? And how his powers work?

“You’re real lucky I don’t want to kill you, buttercup,” he began, laughing as he spoke. “If I were anyone else, you would’ve been killed for that mouth.” 

“Good thing you aren’t,” she scoffed. “Because you’re such a just kidnapper and all.”

 “Not my fault you were stupid enough to fly over the village,” he conceited. He pushed the door open, gesturing his arm for the harpy to enter. 

“This door has metal, too, couldn’t you open it without touching, as well?” She further inquired.

“It’s just a courtesy thing,” he explained “To open a door for a lady,”

“Thought I was a bird,” she joked. It seemed to entertain the man when she joked around, maybe that could help her stay safe. 

“Get in before I decide to give you no food at all,” Heisenberg threatened, but she knew it was an empty one. The harpy smirked and sauntered into the new room, wings sashaying behind her. Strutting like a damn peacock , Heisenberg thought.

Y/N looked at the new room she was in and wondered if this was the actual place the man lived. She expected something a little nicer, thinking the man would at least have some care for his own living quality. There was a large desk with a corkboard covered in scattered pictures and words. Then there was a sizable wooden bed frame in the corner with a thin mattress on top. Y/N thought the grass beds she slept on in her nest were more comfortable than whatever that was.

On the other side of the room, there was an area that was foreign to Y/N, but the smell was drawing her in. She began walking towards the surfaces with the strange human appliances on them. Heisenberg let the door close as the harpy quickly moved over to his kitchenette.

“Oh, careful,” he warned. “Don’t touch anything, it could be hot.” She saw a pot with hot steam coming out of the lid on top of a big metal appliance. 

“Is this how you cook?” she asked, noticing small flames coming out of the top of the appliance where metal bars held up the pot. “How do you make the fire?”

“It’s gas-powered,” he explained. “It uses the earth’s natural resources to run.” Y/N looked at the stove with naive wonder and awe. 

“You don’t have to start the fire, then?” she continued to ask.

“No, well, you just have to turn this knob here,” he told her and demonstrated by switching the knob off. She watched the flames just disappear in front of her eyes and bent down. 

“Wow,” she said in awe. “And this just turns it back on?” She rested her fingertips hesitantly against the knob to feel for heat. When she felt none, she experimentally turned it. The flames reappeared with a little pop ! She jumped back in shock as the flames stirred back to life.

She watched in amazement for a few moments and Heisenberg looked at her as she did. He wasn’t standing too far away, close enough to intervene if she suddenly jumped forward. His knives were down on his desk, no longer in the air. He mused how the half-woman was so fascinated by something he utilized daily. It made sense, of course, but the way she watched in wonder made him want to see that look more. The harpy could tell she was being watched, and her wings folded over herself uncomfortably, it had gotten so cold suddenly. 

“Here,” he quickly moved across the room towards his bed, grabbing the pelt that sat at the end of it. “You must be cold. Why don’t you sit and I’ll get you a serving.”

Karl awkwardly handed the pelt out for her to take it. Do I wrap it around her, too? Or is that too forward? That’s just a friendly gesture, right? He put it over her wings and shoulders, and Y/N’s face went red. 

“Oh, um, thanks…” she mumbled, but something about it made Heisenberg’s chest twinge, and not in a necessarily bad way. He led her to the pathetic dining area of his quarters, moving a chair out for her so she could sit. “Aw, how cute,” she replied in response to the dining chairs he’d assumed she’d never seen. She sat down, securing the blanket around her. The warmth was welcoming, since the lack of meat on her bones didn’t help her body temperature regulation much.

That would have to change, it’s imperative for her long-term recovery process to be a healthy weight. He wondered if maybe her kind needed less muscle mass, though. Avian creatures often needed less body mass. But Heisenberg has yet to know all of the differences between their species. He hoped eventually he would know, it was a curiosity that he had never felt, but it still felt familiar. Maybe it was the child-like curiosity he might have experienced before Mother wiped his mind.

“Right, I’ll fix you a bowl,” Heisenberg announced, letting the harpy sit awkwardly at the table while he walked over to the kitchenette. He searched his cabinets for a presentable bowl and landed on an old oversized mug his brother had gifted him a few years back. ‘World’s best brother,’ it read in crude handwriting. He picked up the ladle laying next to the stove on the counter to scoop some of the stew into the mug. 

He brought it over to her, setting the mug down in front of her with a spoon in it. Steam rose from the cup, a pleasant aroma filling the air that was making Y/N salivate. 

“It smells really good,” she said with a weak smile, fiddling with the spoon for a minute in fascination. “This thing is cool, too.”

“Well, it’s nothing really, just threw some stuff together in a pot with some broth,” he assured, rubbing the back of his neck. Y/N sat in silence and pondered his words. She was going to take her spoon and scoop up some of the stew when an intrusive thought overtook her. 

The spoon flung into the air, directly towards Heisenberg, before it suddenly stopped mid-air. The harpy gasped.

“Now what the hell was that for?” Karl spat, but it didn’t hold any true hostile weight. 

She grabbed the spoon out of the air and inspected it, Heisenberg watching her with great interest.

“Dunno,” she shrugged nonchalantly. “Just wanted to test your reflexes.” She dug the spoon into the mug, stirring it around. She took a good hard look at the stew and decided she was too hungry to implore any further and wanted to scoop up a helping as fast as possible.

She shovelled a spoonful into her mouth and made a long, drawn-out mmmh! noise. Karl continued to watch her as she expectedly spat out some of it.

“ Ow , hot!” she exclaimed, rubbing her tongue as her feathers ruffled. Karl chuckled and Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s so funny?”

“I did warn you it was hot,” Heisenberg joked.

“You warned me the fire box was hot!” She defended. 

“Wouldn’t that make the things on the fire box hot, as well?” he jested, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Y/N didn’t appreciate it and glared at him before picking up another spoonful and blowing on it. Once it cooled slightly, she took in another spoonful, sighing as the heat soothed an ache in the back of her throat. 

Heisenberg sat across from her at the table, watching. Y/N didn’t really notice, too indulged in the delicious stew. She swallowed and put her spoon down for a short reprieve.

“This is delicious. What’s in it?” the harpy inquired.

“A rabbit stew with carrot and potatoes.” Y/N’s face dropped. Rabbit? 

“I’m sorry, rabbit?” She asked, gulping.

“Yeah…?” Karl cocked his eyebrow. The harpy coughed up whatever was left of her mouthful and began spitting out the rest of the offending taste.

“You eat them?!” she exclaimed, the shrieking making Heisenberg’s ears ring. He brought his fingers up to his ears and Y/N lowered her posture to seem less intimidating. “Sorry…” She bowed her head.

“So, you’re vegetarian?” Heisenberg asked, intrigued. 

“Does that mean not eating rabbits? Because yes ,” she spat, trying to rid her mouth of the previous offending taste. “We kept rabbits as pets .” 

“If it makes you feel any better, we humans do that, too,” he mused.

“No! That does not make me feel better!” she exclaimed, throwing her one arm up and ruffling her feathers in disbelief. He let out a full, hearty laugh with his chest that initially startled the harpy. Her wings curled inwards before relaxing, the crinkle in Heisenberg’s eyes showing she had nothing to currently fear.

She turns back to the soup, giving it a second glance. She was hungry, really hungry. She thinks about the faces of her old pet rabbits, so cute and cuddly. Then she thinks about her survival, about the fact she’ll probably never have a pet rabbit again. She apologized to her elders in her mind before she picked up the spoon again and hesitantly put another scoop into her mouth. 

Karl watched in fascination as the harpy seemingly ignored her supposed moral code and began eating the stew with the meat. He didn’t know if it was a cultural thing, or if their species didn’t normally need meat, but he figured she was probably desperate for any nutrients she could get.

“Have a change of heart?” Heisenberg asked sarcastically. She replied simply.

“I’m just trying to survive.”