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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[impudentsongbird]

The older Archangel's touch burned, light and unceasing rather than sudden and overwhelming like his Grace; the lion squirmed and whined, his claws scraping divots in the ground. His muscles quivered with the need to run, but the net prevented his movement. Michael's voice rang all through him. The sound of it bounced back, resonating on that metaphysical level that mortals couldn't quite hear but could sense, the sort that made their hearts warm and their backs prickle.

This time it made instincts scream, this twisting, echoing throwback of a loving order. Fear and hopelessness made it dark. Yet there was something under it, something hollow, the sound of someone crying out beneath the weight of the lion's mind. And it was heavy--too heavy.

'brother,' came the whisper, defeated and resigned and crushed beneath that weight. Gabriel had none of the strength to do what Michael asked. The lion yowled.