For unfavorableinvestigation

[immortal_kitten]

Sissel had witnessed a mugging - a man grabbing a woman from behind, knife to her throat, and demanding her purse...and maybe something more - and wanted to try to help. So he'd quickly found a hiding place close by for his body, his shell, laid down and hopped out, ghost-trick jumping objects until he'd reached the attacker's clothes. He'd been afraid that if he approached physically, the man would have hurt the woman, even killed her, so he'd opted for a much more subtle approach. The man had been in formal business attire (a ruse, maybe, as he certainly wasn't acting like a normal businessman). Sissel possessed his tie, causing the fabric to cling and inch on itself, tightening the loop around the man's throat. Predictably, he panicked and the woman took advantage of his distraction to escape.

Her trouble was over, but that's when Sissel's began.

The man took off running the other way and down the street, continually just out of reach of buildings or lampposts or trash cans or anything Sissel could have used to get off his charging carrier and back to his body. Then the man got into a car and drove . . . even farther away.

It took many long, frustrating hours - night had ended, dawn had broken, and the sun was now high in the sky - before Sissel made it back into the neighborhood. Now to find or make a path back to his body.