I'm just a poor, wayfaring stranger ;;

It was the worst kind of feeling in the world, as if his brain had a paper cut and he’d developed an ear infection in both ears all at once. He twitched, it felt like ants were under his skin, creeping and crawling through his veins as worms lay in his belly and munched away at his insides. Altair lie there and in all honesty, he thought he was dead – Gabriel had never saved him, he had simply hallucinated that whole event and was now in Hell. It wasn’t all fire and brimstone either, just minor twinges and ticks and a pounding headache; man, those religious nuts had no idea what they were talking about. But then he blinked and, hissing when the wind blew and a ray of sunlight beamed directly into his face through the leaves, Altair realized he wasn’t dead and he wasn’t in Hell either.

Grunting, he pushed himself up to stand and shook off the dirt and… what was that, soot? He snorted, tilting his head to the side and staring blank-faced at the ground; he felt numb, for the most part, but that much had been apparent for the last few weeks. Altair was emotionally spent and physically exhausted, putting one foot in front of the other required effort, and if not for the small, short bursts of wind he used to keep himself upright, he probably would have fallen flat on his face within the first five minutes. On and on, Altair wondered, slipping between trees and quickly avoiding passersby. He wasn’t sure where Gabriel had dropped him off at, nor was he sure that no one here would recognize him, and then run straight back to Lilith looking for a reward for information.

Typically, their rewards consisted of her turning them into some sort of vile abomination, but none of them ever seemed to realize it did their brains a lot more harm than good. Altair couldn’t remember how many of the stupid things he’d had to escape from, before one of them finally had him cornered – the memory sent a painful little jolt to his head. Apparently, thinking about the incident was presently a big no no. As for what to do next, Altair was at a total loss; he had no idea where he was or what he might run into. The only thing currently comforting him was, for once, there were no cries of agony in the distance and no scent of blood on the wind. No hint of smoke or fire, no sign of war whatsoever. It was… nice, and he might have enjoyed it more had he not been so disoriented and tired.