- Luiz is a young adult harpy eagle. In general he is rather silly and tends to act on a whim, which often results in getting himself into tricky situations.
In fact one such situation was how he ended up meeting his best friend and mate, Stein. Stein is a cotton-top tamarin that was, before the apocalypse, a victim of the pet trade. He is about five years old, a year older than Luiz.
The two met after Luiz managed to get into a skirmish with a golden eagle. All of the birds had only recently migrated to their haven and those that were territorial were still trying to adjust to living communally. The golden eagle was much older and more capable than Luiz, so when the young harpy decided to pick a fight, feeling that the other eagles had set up their nest too close to his space, the golden eagle decided to do away with the problematic harpy quite quickly, and brutality. She left Luiz outside of the bird haven, crippled and bleeding on the ground. He had passed out from exhaustion when Stein stumbled upon him while trying to catch a small bird to eat. He failed to catch the bird, but instead found the unconscious harpy. Seeing as the feathered giant was not awake enough to harm him, Stein started repairing him simply because seeing others hurting makes Stein himself suffer.
Once Luiz gained consciousness Stein kept his distance, but the eagle could not fly, so he could not hunt. Knowing he needed food to recover, Stein stayed around him, bringing him an exceptionally large portion of whatever bugs, frogs, and small animals he caught. Luiz gained health and strength all the while. Stein began to grow weak from not feeding himself, as he had been giving all of his catch to the much larger animal. Stein came back from a hunt at one point, miserable to return empty-handed, and found that his patient was no where to be found. Feeling oddly abandoned, Stein stayed there for three days, not bothering to care for himself.
His efforts were not in vain, though. Luiz had recovered enough to be able to fly, and hunt, once again. The grateful bird wanted to thank his primate savior, and so he returned, a dog he had managed to hunt down in his talons, and dropped the food before the startled tamarin. The two ate together and, eventually, realized that along with the change in climate that the alien-apocalypse had brought, it also somehow spread a common-tongue between all creatures. So the two started talking, and eventually became traveling companions. Luiz found he did not wish to return to the bird haven after nearly being killed by another eagle, and in the end decided to stay permanently with his friend.
As Stein and Luiz are both social creatures that form strong bonds, they grew close over time, and simply fell into the habit of loving one another. They are introduced into my WIP novel two years after they met.
So yes, this is my strange and precious interspecies gay couple. I love them.
