A skeleton stood in the shadows. His heart was in his throat, pounding and crying and aching. Out across the water that gathered at the foot of the tumultuous falls a lonely, ermine creature, painted gold and fire in the sunset. His eyes followed every movement fervently. Even if he couldn't smell her, even if he couldn't see so clearly from behind the curtain of dead leaves and shadow, he knew it was her. She was here. Aisling. His fur stood on end, screaming and anxious. The godless, forsaken creature could not find it in him to walk over to her, there was too much noise in his head. Weeping with happiness, his soul urged him to go to her, to press himself against her until he was part of her and she could never leave again. But his mind, oh his mind was cautious, shrewd, and above all: unforgiving. This was the girl that had disappeared on him, who seemed changed, almost unrecognizable in the dying light. And Pangur. Was he with her? What... what would Pangur say? More than anything, Kiche feared the God he had left behind... or tried to leave behind. But he missed Pangur, and missed the hole he filled inside of him. And Aisling... a gust of breathless longing burst from his lungs, a gentle sigh that floated on the wind. Was it possible that she was even more beautiful?

Hidden at the edge of the forest, he felt that he was caught between the two extremes of himself: who he had been, and who he was now. Was there still a place for her in his life? He hadn't seen her in so long. Would he still want to kiss her? Without hesitation his heart cried out that it did. It wanted so badly to kiss her.... But would she want to kiss him? He was frozen somewhere between the past and present in the fire-light of the coldest winter afternoon, and the breeze tugged at his fur with a mirrored indecision. Did he even deserve her? If he just ran away right now, she need never know he was here. He didn't have to look back. He could just run away and search for his second Angel, and love her and pretend that she was the real Aisling he was too scared to face.

Without thinking, the heart that pounded in his throat spoke for him in a language he didn't know he spoke: a low, keening howl of mourning. It was tuneless and desperate, ugly and beautiful all at once. His voice was broken and raspy, dried up and parched because he was too afraid to go near the waterside, lest she see him.

let the chase begin?

Every movement she made caused him to cringe and wince. Regret was the sound of his broken, ruined voice that tapered off into a whisper. Even as it faded, some of the wretched bitterness lingered in the air, tingling in the atmosphere. Cursing himself, he wished that she had been startled by the noise and taken it as her cue to leave. Sorting out all this tangle of feelings that had grown up between them like weeds was the last things he wanted. He felt as if any attempt to fix things between him would end with him being strangled by all these complicated feelings he couldn't begin to name or explain. Frozen where he stood, the copper shadow watched Aisling as she turned about, but he couldn't hear what she said. He was too far away. Making no attempt to answer her, and suddenly feeling that he shouldn't be here, he took a tentative step backwards. A mercenary thorn thrust its way into his food, and he cried out in emotionally-exaggerated pain. "Shit!"

But she would have heard that. Too distracted by his warring thoughts, he had not thought to muffled his cries. Fear bubbled up inside of him. She would have heard him. And she would know he was here, she would find him. And that couldn't happen. He stumbled and flailed and crashed through the trees, stumbling through the undergrowth that reached out to ensnare him.

I'm assuming Aisling is much faster than fatass Fatman, here. LOL @ 70 speed vs. 130 speed.

Part of him wanted to stop and turn around when he heard her crashing through the forest after him, and part of him just wanted to keep running. But it wasn't the brave romantic side of him that had control of his body. Instead, he was gripped by an overwhelming fear that preyed on his instincts. He was not in control of himself. The large, copper brute who had thought himself so intellectual, so pious, was reduced to a flight-response. He was a marionette tugged and contorted by instincts and drives that told his heart to beat explosively and his muscles to thrust him deeper and deeper into the forest with an explosive power. Aisling called out his name, and it was more painful than he could bear to hear her voice again. Painful because it made him afraid, and painful because the distance he was putting between them.

"I can't stop," he cried, not casting a glance back over his shoulder to see if she was still dogging him. He didn't need to: he could hear her —her erratic, shallow breaths, her echoing pace. She was close. The thought sent an electric, icy thrill down his spine. "I can't!" If he stopped, it meant facing the past, every wrong thing he'd ever done, it meant being in love with a creature so completely beautiful that he didn't deserve. To stop was to let the very last barrier standing between him and the heathens crumble. This one last wall, this one last moral, was all that stood between him and the wilderness, and he firmly believed that.

And some how she never caught up to him. And he never looked back. A piece snapped off of his heart. But he was free.