They couldn’t escape now. The harpies had already seen them, there in their ship, huddled for protection as those sweeping women came down with taloned feet and grasped at them. They picked them like apples, one by one. Skin here, a limb there, and dropped each gift into to the ocean. Those whose pieces were lucky enough to make it to land were dropped in a boiling cauldron that the harpies had prepared earlier. A monumental feast was planned for this night, the evening that the colonizers were promised to come. And they did, and one by one they were slayed, because the harpies presence was unknown and unspoken of. They knew it had to stay that way, and they did what they had to do to protect their land.

That night, they feasted wonderfully then went back to their normal business.