touch me and you'll never be alone

The big cat watched with hungry and ferocious eyes as the raven taunted and sang. The words were like a chilling breeze that caused white-caps to appear in the rivers of Remi's soul. Teeth bared and ears flat against his skull, the manticore (and the rest of his predatory shifts as well), wanted to do little else than lunge into the tree, to take the white bird between its teeth, and hear the satisfying crunch of all those tiny hollow bones snapping like dry kindling.

I am not so clever with words as you. The manticore silently snarled, barbed tail rising ominously behind him. Strains of melody whisked through his mind before fluttering away like feathers on a breeze; The raven and the manticore .. In another time and place it might well have been a nursery rhyme, but the alchemist's already troubled mind had little energy to think up clever refrains, nor were words his specialty.

So instead he merely snarled. Two could play the game of raising the other's ire. Gods knew he'd learned more than enough of Jigano's buttons by now.

Do you know who I might seek out, should such a thing occur? Rory. Remi bared his fangs in a silent laugh. I have known him longer than you, you know. I was the first Outlander face he saw here. The very first. And oh what we have in common now. Our men blighted and crazy. Worlds crumbling. How we might console one another in these long, dark nights...

until the lambs become lions.