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.

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[machaseh]

Michael knew what the lion was. He knew where it had been, and he knew, roughly, where it was going. He had lived in Taubolt long enough to know how to track an animal. But Gabriel - what had been Gabriel, what would be Gabriel again, he hoped, he prayed (though perhaps their Master wasn't listening) - would sense him and know to evade him.

They landed the clearing where Swami had seen the lion, and the boy pointed wordlessly in the direction it had gone; his eyes were wide and frightened, but he walked forward ahead of the ancient and the angel, only stepping back and following when Michael pushed gently ahead of him. The archangel relaxed as much as he could manage, reaching out for the nearly demonic presence that had once been his brother.