The Tangle you're on fire like, "i feel like i'm gonna explode any moment"

set on 11/14, staying kinda vague @Zugzwang

He can only run following his encounter with Ulf, almost as blindly as when he'd run from Korei — but this time, there is no icy panic consuming him. He feels a bone-deep weariness, a cutting grief in his chest more painful than his wounds; he's so tired of running from his past. He's so tired of fucking up his present. He's so fucking tired, but he can't stop running — maybe he can never stop. Maybe this is his curse, and everything he's tried has just been another path to the same destination.
Well, he's lost now anyway. He recognizes this place, if only vaguely; more memorable to him is the woman he'd met here, the one who'd been in heat. She'd belonged to a pack, he recalls — a pack nearby? He struggles to think clearly, sucking in a breath and slowing to a halt as his head begins to ache in response. A dull pounding starts up in his skull as if to punish him, adding to the myriad of hurt in his battered body. He shivers and glances around, trying to make sense of the landscape; the sun is low in the sky now, and if he doesn't hurry he knows he'll be stuck here for the night. He needs to get back home.

It is the scent of blood that lures the lurking cat from the nearby ridge and in to the tangle of dense forest. The creature has been satiated of late and is proud of his accomplishments; he feels like he's done quite a good job at rooting out the pests, filled with pride with his skills as an exterminator. The wolves he encounters are never the same again. The first job had been a fluke — a passing fancy — and then the next, an imperative, for the dark bitch had found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. That last one had been days ago now and Zugzwang itched all over for more. He wondered if he would be as lucky this time, in this maze of a forest. The scent of wolf pervaded every inch of the wood and it infuriated him, but nothing sparked more vitriol within his system than the odious metallic note to the air — there was a wounded beast somewhere in here, and he would seek it out, snuff the life from it. There would be mercy, he thought. They would both get what they deserved.

He starts forward again uncertainly after a few beats, still not entirely clear on where he's going. He only makes it a few steps before something else stops him — an oddly familiar scent in the air. His blood chills almost before he fully registers it, before he remembers where he knows this scent from. Immediately his mind flashes to that day in the mountains, and he freezes.
For a moment he tries to hold to rational thought, to avoid the inevitable panic he can already feel creeping over him — but then he swears the scent intensifies around him, and his mind goes blank with terror. He takes a few rushed steps in one direction — the wrong one, he's certain, and he turns to try another direction but that doesn't quite feel right either. He stops again, breathing hard, and suddenly wonders if he's imagining it. Maybe it's his mind playing tricks on him again; maybe he just needs to calm down.

He could lash out as soon as he finds the wolf roaming the forest, but he chooses not to. That isn't to say his skin doesn't crawl when the scent of the beast hits his nose, or that his claws don't unsheath when he comes within striking distance; he drifts near, but is shadowed. His need to rend and tear is present but he senses that fear too - that thick, intoxicating mix of endorphins and thundering heart-beat, which he likes to think he can hear. A cat's ears are just as developed as a dog's, if not more-so; the cougar doesn't think of this beast as anything more than a mutt, a curr, a waste of his time. But that's what makes this fun. Zugzwang knows he can snuff the life out of this walking carcass whenever he chooses - its his right as a superior species - but he does not. Not yet, anyway.

The wolf deviates within the woods. His path cuts around a grove of interlocking trees and down, giving the feline a height advantage. Zugzwang sweeps along with silent strides, hoping that his presence is felt, that his scent is so strong it overwhelms the pathetic dog. He is hungry, and so far his violence has only been a game to keep him distracted as he looks for a mate, but he is hopeful for so much more at this point. Wounding is fun, but killing is better. And he could kill this mutt with such finesse -- but there would be nobody around to witness it, appreciate it. It was depressing, and Zugzwang refused to let this experience be a downer.

So he trailed after the wolf in silence, letting him get ahead but tracking him incessently. Allowing him space, only to close that gap and lurk nearby. Eventually the cat tires of this game - so he hisses through the trees, letting his voice warp through the dark, Why are you running? He calls out, toneless but composed. You know it is useless to run from me, dog. There is a lightness to his voice. A contentedness that plays through his tone, because Zugzwang knows something that the dog does not - he knows that the dog is going to die, and there is nothing that can stop the inevitable.

He swears the scent is following him — the beast is following him, surely. Doubt clouds his mind, warring with his fear, and just when it seems the former may win he hears a voice. A voice that is distinctly un-wolf, taunting him — threatening him. He swallows hard, trembling, and turns suddenly to face the direction he thinks the voice is coming from. But it's dark now, and he can't see anything. He can hardly hear anything over the sound of his own labored breathing, the blood rushing through his head, and he thinks he's going to die here. He's thought that before, so many times — but this time, he's certain it's the end, and all he can do is stand there and hyperventilate.

His voice has the intended effect of causing distress, he knows it. He feels it, and is overwhelmed by a swell in his ego and a vile, twisting grin sets itself across his blunt face. He pauses when the stranger does, and there is a preternatural silence slipping through the trees again; as if the voice had not been uttered, as if the wolf and the beast had not crossed paths at all. The cat begins to move again - and the silence persists, because he has had many years to hone his stalking. He may not know exactly where the wolf is waiting in the dark but he can still hunt, and the thick scent of dog twists through the trees. It grows thick, like someone wearing too much cheap cologne, to the point where the cat knows he's close but cannot be certain exactly - not without movement. Dogs were such messy things, such chaotic creatures -- but this one, this one Zugzwang could find a use for.

His voice beckons from the shadows, Tsk, silly pup, waiting in the dark for me. That was fun, he supposed. But the last wolf he had encountered did not fare well, and the one before that, who fought back -- Come, pup, lets play a game -- and without missing a beat he let out a deathly shriek like that of a human woman, high pitched and terrible, which caught among the trees and echoed through the twisting corridors of the maze.