Human
Hawks didn't use words.
He supposed that eventually, what had happened to his expressions could happen to his thoughts. In that moment of capture, after sometimes hours of tracking, watching, waiting, with the kind of concentration possible only to a creature with no other thought whatsoever in it's head. The moment where all that expectation culminated in warm blood in his talons, in a beating heart eventually silenced, the pure thrill of filling himself with what he was made to eat...
He shivered.
Not because of his thoughts. Natures' cycle of predator and prey had ceased to disturb him long ago. To someone who had spent all of last week in the California sun, the sudden entry to an air-conditioned bookstore was something of a jolt. Then, of course, there was all the usual feelings he associated with being indoors. Claustrophobia. The artificial. The feeling of being in control no longer. Of community.
And then there was this body, one weakness upon another. Eyes near blindness. Ears that had to strain to catch glimmers of sound. The pitiful slowness.
Trapped. All his hawk senses screamed.
Except that he wasn't a hawk, was he? Not here, not in this body. Not anywhere, really, except in those moments of predation. Hawks never thought in words, and they never thought about things like problems and relationships and morality.
And yeah, he was pretty sure they never thought about gorgeous blonds with warrior complexes either.
But humans -of a certain kind- often thought about books, and so here he was. Not really browsing as much as hunting down that new novel. The author had a distinct, somewhat disturbing style perfectly matched to his weary pessimism; and he still thought a book was -forgive me, Rachel- a better buy than most other things.
Weak human eyes or not, he was still a hunter. Three minutes later, he was at the cash counter, fingering the few dollars he'd taken from Axs' book fund. The flourescent lights were getting to him, the claustrophobia worsening. The sooner he got out of here, the better.
The middle aged woman in front of him moved, and he set down the book on the counter with some relief. The girl at the counter -a teenager a little older than him, maybe- spared him an interested glance. Halfway, anyway. He could swear the other half moved closer to whatever alarm was hidden below the counter.
Wordlessly, she processed his bill. Equally wordlessly, he paid it. Then he grabbed the book and pretty much fled -or was it flew?- for the exit.
Outside was a relief: Air. Sky. No large bodies of water to be seen. A wistful smile spread across his face. Maybe he was more hawk than he thought. The clock was even ticking to remind him of this. He'd spent an inordinate amount of time wandering around doing nothing, and two hours didn't seem too far off. All it took was a secluded alleyway and a couple of minutes. A hawk was now clutching a paperback.
The book was light enough, but he didn't want to risk anyone catching a hawk attempting to carry it. Glumly, he remorphed. Again into the human body. What had he been thinking? Read? Since when did he have the time to read? Surveillance was an all-time job, he'd found that out from the beginning.
Maybe Ax could take a look at it. The guy was capable of reading through the entire dictionary -and memorizing the whole thing- in a few hours.
He walked, not in a straight line, but however the constructions permitted. He passed a couple of blocks, avoided a construction site and stepped through a park.
Human. Humans. Civilization. Unconcerned of the impending doomsday.
And a few of them were reading. One was definitley reading the same book he had.
He looked at his hand. Package and fingers, not meat and talon. No person should ever be forced to go through this sort of identity crisis. It was horrendously unfair, and if he complained any more he wouldn't have the time to do anything else.
Someone threw a frisbee. Someone yelled. Someone laughed.
An excited little puppy brushed him as it chased after the blue blob, tongue hanging out, tail furiously wagging, happy the way only one of those Pemalites' descendants could be happy. He laughed.
Hawks didn't laugh, either.
What the heck. The world could deal with one hour of missing surveillance.
And thinking that, he sat down on the grass and opened the book.