Lambert wouldn't consider himself a morning person by nature, but the quiet isolation -- the few minutes he has solely to himself and nobody else -- are nice. It gives him the chance spend some time in his own head thinking of nothing at all but the pound of his feet on the pavement, the quiet ache in his muscles. Which of course means it gets interrupted by squabbling birds crossing his path, something that draws him up short mid-jog.

These days, Lambert's been doing his best to ignore birds and anything small and rodent-like that flies (this has recently made his home life immensely difficult, since he can't even talk about it). It's not like he's about to pounce, or even has particularly cat-like instincts anymore, but there's a memory of feathers and blood in his mouth that should be unpleasantly visceral, but isn't, and he knows there's already enough wrong with him without adding that to the mix. As he glances between the dark shapes circling above and the broken twigs and fluttering leaves of the bushes at the side of the path, an uneasy feeling churns in his gut, intensifying the longer he hesitates.

With an internal groan, Lambert turns towards the bushes to investigate where the crash-landing bird went, hoping like hell this isn't a bad idea (and already suspecting that it is).