tonight i'm so alone / this sorrow takes a hold

[impudentsongbird]

The mountain-lion was skittish. He leapt from rock to rock, ducked under the trees, peered through the foliage as if searching. His fur bristled with anxiety, the feeling of wrongness.

And there was something wrong. Something it couldn't comprehend. As if, when that human had touched him, it had shifted something--ruffled his fur all up the wrong way, and he couldn't get it to settle. And there was something else, too; something he couldn't quite remember which had happened at the same time. His instincts wondered why he let the humans go.

But mostly, there was something wrong, and the mountain-lion fled from being seen.

Comments

[machaseh]

"I will peel its skin from your body, Gabriel." Michael's voice, wretched and angry and frightened, rang out, shaking the trees, as his fingers tightened in the lion's scruff and his Grace tightened the net around its body. "I will pull you out of it bodily if I must. I will re-form you. Do you want me to do that, little brother? It will hurt."

He stopped himself before he said, I don't want to hurt you. Just because it was true didn't mean that Gabriel ought to hear it. It was weakness. Just because this was his brother didn't mean he should show this much sympathy. He was a danger to Taubolt. Gabriel was a danger. Not his brother. A threat.

He lifted the lion bodily 'til all four paws dangled in the air, its tail twisting and thrashing against the dusty ground. "I will climb into your head and make you whole again," he said, throat feeling raw and tight in a way he was sure it wasn't meant to. "I will."