(I did not draw these pictures, credit goes to their artist)

Near the end of the Dark Ages, Xeyla Vess was living a normal life of a normal peasant girl. One day she stumbled upon a strange cave while she was in the woods searching for rare flowers to bring back to her father, a florist for the royal court. She could hear some sort of melody from within, and was drawn by it to investigate.

 

Upon doing so she found a sorceress performing incantations to a strange melody that did not seem to have an origin. As she turned to leave the sorceress caught her eye and froze her in her tracks. She cursed the girl, changing her form to some sort of foul hybrid of girl and bird, cackling all the while. She would not be able to tell of the sorceress' lair if no one would take the time to listen!

 

Xeyla fled the cave in her new form, not wanting to wind up as some sort of slave to the sorceress. She knew she could never return home, her family and friends would be frightened, they would try to destroy her. So she said her goodbyes from a distance as she flew over her hometown, then began a restless journey to find some magic user to possibly reverse the spell. As she explored the world, she quickly mastered her new form, for she was always a quick learner. It was difficult without hands, but her claws could make up for the lack thereof.

 

Eventually she was able to find a Sorceress that would aid her, however this too ended in disaster. The Sorceress was unable to destroy the curse on Xeyla, instead she damaged it's structure beyond recovery. This sealed Xeyla's fate, forever destined to be a harpy, though it did allow a modicum of choice for her, she was bestowed with the ability to change the color of her feathers, and slight changes to her form. (Such as growing arms as well as her wings.) The sorceress' body did not survive the event, and so her soul took up residence in the nearest object it was in tune with, which happened to be an amulet Xeyla wore. The sorceress regularly advises Xeyla, having become attached to her.

In a strange twist of fate, Xeyla is partially grateful for the curse because she loves being able to fly, even in the current age where there are airplanes, nothing can beat being able to fly on your own accord. She loves music. She's an expert marksman with a bow when she has hands.

A very calm, distant person. Almost never gets panicked or overly excited, tends to keep what emotions she does have hidden, possibly due to her years of isolation from the people that were once her species.

So far the only friend of Xeylas is the Sorceress that attempted to help her, Azazael.