It seems, for an instant, like maybe it's not just him, like any step he'd have taken, if he wound up taking it, might be returned. That instant passes too quickly, though, and Gleb never gets a chance to find out if he'd even have worked up the will to go through with it. The effigy lights, the crowd cheers with excitement — and Anya, so close in front of him, her hand still in his, starts to scream in apparent pain, though what's wrong, he doesn't know. He inhales sharply, sets his hands on her shoulders, eyes wide and frantic with fear, saying her name without thinking in some sort of bid to get through to her, though she doesn't seem to hear him. That isn't much of a surprise, between the crowd and the sickening sound of snapping bones. She's changing, somehow, but he doesn't know what's happening or why, only that he seems to be powerless to do anything about it and that whatever this is shouldn't be possible.
Any lack of logic, though, isn't enough for him to keep a distance, as if there's still some chance that this could be stopped somehow, that she might come back to herself. The only thing that sends him, finally, staggering back is when the wolf in front of him — because it's an animal now, and not Anya at all, all happening too quickly for him to even try to process — lunges up at him, claws digging through his shirt and into his chest. He's the one who cries out, then, hands lifting to press to the wounds left behind, already red and wet with his own blood.
Oh, he thinks, pain radiating through his chest, his breath shaky. On an instinct, he leans over, wincing as he does, to grab the tattered shreds of Anya's coat, watching the wolf disappear into the crowd as he does. The fabric barely visibly stains as he presses it to the gashes. Already, though, his mind is elsewhere. Anya had been hurt, screaming, and now she's gone. That seems far more important than anything that's happened to him, and means that he has to find her. Logic and injuries be damned, there isn't a chance he'll be alright until he knows that she is, too.
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Any lack of logic, though, isn't enough for him to keep a distance, as if there's still some chance that this could be stopped somehow, that she might come back to herself. The only thing that sends him, finally, staggering back is when the wolf in front of him — because it's an animal now, and not Anya at all, all happening too quickly for him to even try to process — lunges up at him, claws digging through his shirt and into his chest. He's the one who cries out, then, hands lifting to press to the wounds left behind, already red and wet with his own blood.
Oh, he thinks, pain radiating through his chest, his breath shaky. On an instinct, he leans over, wincing as he does, to grab the tattered shreds of Anya's coat, watching the wolf disappear into the crowd as he does. The fabric barely visibly stains as he presses it to the gashes. Already, though, his mind is elsewhere. Anya had been hurt, screaming, and now she's gone. That seems far more important than anything that's happened to him, and means that he has to find her. Logic and injuries be damned, there isn't a chance he'll be alright until he knows that she is, too.