The Fledgling
(Ah, beblindio! Our wee fledgling has flown the nest, so she has…)
Inspired by a piece of indifferent art, showing an adorable child with long red hair holding a pet pigeon to her face with big-eyed tender love and care. Me being me, it stirred other feelings.
Okay, we know canonically banshees are a separate species, an avian predator, a bird that has evolved to a humanoid with human-level intelligence. Or at least, that's how they're presented in Going Postal. Reaper Man gives us Mr ixolite, who appears to be a different sort of banshee – explicitly an Undead and a member of the Fresh Start Club. It is said he is a misfit because he is a he and Banshees are otherwise always female.
So… given the Roundworld legend of the Banshee ("fairy-woman") of Irish myth. What if, on the Discworld, they are a specifically Irish, or Hergenian, sort of were with a daytime, female, human form? Especially since in other tales I've introduced the idea of the Blodeuwedd – a Llamedosian were-bird, always female, who is woman by day, hunting owl by night. I may come back and write this as a longer tale. It has legs.
Bridget O'Hellion, aged ten, from Ballygobackwards, County Guinness, Hergen, realised she is truly not like other girls. Her parents have revealed the awful truth: "You know Granny McKenna used to go out at nights, for long walks, you follow, and you woke up complaining about a bloody great big bird landing on the roof? Well... there's a streak in the McKenna family and it's come down to you, so it has. Brid, darling girl, you are a Banshee. We thought, well, maybe she won't, maybe she'll just be a little bit of a banshee, or maybe she'll grow out of it. But we can't keep the truth from you and we'll always love you… "
Although she has heard of Captain Angua of the City Watch, werewolf, and she is wondering if she too can have the same "without cruelty" relationship with what would otherwise be a prey species. Bridget has decided, age ten, to be a vegetarian in her human form as it's really the only way to go. but pigeons are so... attractive...