Ikkaku kept coming by at night now. He couldn't help it. He was so interested, so curious about the harpy that he couldn't stay away. It just seemed so human that it didn't seem right to let it sit there for months on end, all by its lonesome.
He wanted to try talking to it.
He'd made sure everyone was asleep in their tents and then came out by the light of the moon. A black panther paced in its cage, snarling and clawing at the walls as he walked by, but he ignored it and came to that one isolated cage which was always set further away from the others, along with the more interesting attractions.
Sometimes he'd sit in the distance and hope to get a sight of the animal. He didn't want to be within its reaching distance, but he still wanted a good look. It didn't happen often, but sometimes it would start moving around in there and would roll into a patch of moonlight. Confirming his early assumptions, it was male, and it was completely naked. Sometimes if he didn't reveal his presence and sat a little ways away in the woods, he could see it come to the bars and strain against them. Sometimes it would fit its arms and legs through, and he'd be able to hear this loud rustling sound even from that distance. It sounded like wind beating past his ears. There would be banging, and the car would rock slightly, and eventually the harpy would give up and retreat to the corners again.
Every glimpse of its body was like sugar in Ikkaku's mouth. He'd never seen a more beautiful human form, just barely visible in the darkness, the moon shining slightly on the silvery skin. This person didn't look like a beast at all. Maybe there was some part of it that he hadn't yet seen, but how could that be? All the important bits were there. He didn't get what the supernatural part was. It didn't much look like a harpy. It seemed wholly human other than that time it had been in the sun.
Eventually, when he worked up his courage later in the week, he crept close to the cage again, feet crunching feathers against the grass. He looked down in confusion for a moment, and then into the cage.
The moon was shining inside now, and Ikkaku could see a naked form huddled in the corner, and as soon as Ikkaku spoke up, a great mangy wing moved sharply to cover its body up, hunching up so much that there was nothing visible except those feathers and fleabitten patches of flesh where its quills were falling out. Ikkaku held his breath, heart pounding. So it was true… It wasn't human after all. How on earth had that fucker, Urahara, caught something like this? More importantly, why was it being treated so cruelly? It was… It was chained inside a cage. None of the other animals had shackles, but this one did.
Given only small glimpses, Ikkaku touched the bars, holding some meat. He knew it could smell it, because its body was heaving with desire, breath coming in gasps. It went quiet after a while and wouldn't respond to him, wouldn't even turn towards him to show its face. This was no normal animal. It was intelligent, and had the pride of a human. It had willpower and was stubborn to the point of starvation.
"Hey," he called, but it wouldn't talk to him, keeping its wings up like shutters, like some great vulture hunching its shoulders. He tried night after night to get its attention, saying the same things. "Psst. Hey there, I brought something for you," he'd say as kindly as he could, but it never worked. The harpy was ignoring him on purpose, almost bitterly so.
Ikkaku would always leave disappointed. He knew he could just put the meat inside its cage for it to eat later, if it was simply too proud to take it from him itself, but the sign had told him not to feed it, and he didn't know what would happen if he did. Sure, it was dumb, but if he was going to get in trouble for breaking the rules, he wanted it to be because it had taken the food from his hand.
He went into town to read about harpies, looking in as many legends and fairy tale books as he could. He read nothing about male harpies or shape-changing abilities or this day and night change. What he did find was discrepancies. Loads of them.
This 'ugly old woman' myth had actually come much later than the original story of the harpies. They were actually supposed to have been very beautiful women with wings on their backs, sent to steal food and take evildoers to hell.
When he asked Urahara about the animal, his boss merely laughed behind his fan, saying something like, 'I knew you'd figure it out eventually.' Soon he realized that he was nearly the only long-time-employed worker who hadn't known. A little miffed, but still polite enough, he went on to ask Urahara some questions, most of which were dodged. All Ikkaku discovered was that the harpy had been caught while stealing food and was not to be released. Urahara seemed to be of the opinion that the bird was merely throwing a tantrum and would come around eventually to be part of their traveling show, once it stopped hiding in the dark.
"But it's unhappy," he said with a frown.
"Its life will improve once it comes to the light." Ikkaku remembered how ugly it looked in the light, and knew that it would only become a freak attraction made to shock and scare people, another draw that would bring in more money. The animal wouldn't be set free no matter how miserable it became, and no one was allowed to feed it until it cooperated.
Ikkaku felt uneasy when he heard that.
Their traveling show had never treated an animal that way. If a lion or tiger was depressed or cranky after being captured, it would still be fed and taken care of. Simply because this harpy was more intelligent, intelligent enough to be stubborn, they were punishing it like some sort of bad child. They'd starved it for at least two years. Who knows how long it had been caged up before Ikkaku had started working here.
Ikkaku set his mind on befriending it. He'd never planned to stay in this troupe forever, and when he split, he was breaking that thing out with him.