Unfortunately, it's not quite big enough to swallow her whole, and her getting dismembered and eaten piece by piece is a little too graphic for the story. Not to mention she'd be dead. Her being dead isn't really an option. >.>
If she can somehow hold on for 15-30 seconds, will the bird land safely after being cured/saved/whatever? Like, if she could hold on to the feathers or something.
Unfortunately, the bird does need to be defeated relatively close to the ground. See, when it's purified, it vanishes in a puff of light, and while the protag will also get the ability to fly after taking it down, after it's defeated it leaves behind something that the heroes need to see for PLOT REASONS. Unfortunately, if it's beaten up in the air, then the thing it drops could be assumed to have been damaged in the fall, which would really change the feeling of the scene.
My original plan was to have it be defeated in the air, actually, because it'd be cool to have it fly up, then vanish in a flash of light, and then have the protag fly back down with her new powers, but then I remembered the other thingie and was like "Wait, I can't do that. Lame."