Sarkan

The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.

 

All was silent beneath the canopy, as though Viride was no wood but a cathedral. 

If so, no one seemed to mind the blasphemer that walked beneath its arching ceiling. The birds still sang hymns from bare branches, and the incense of decaying leaves, of lingering rain, of well-fed soil, rose up with every step Sarkan took. Today he didn’t wear his cloak, only an expression of grimness, a weight his heart echoed. Somewhat. 

The Percheron was tracking. He moved slowly, ambling along wider trails before splitting off onto paths that were little more than deer-tracks through the briars. With an expert eye he noted each hollow dug by a boar and each den home to a fox, but he’d never sought such ordinary prey and he wouldn’t be starting today. 

It seemed he was not the first of his kind that Denocte knew. That in itself wasn’t so surprising - Sarkan had been thoroughly impressed by how many magical beasts purported to make the forest their home - but such a wide flurry of activity was neither normal nor wise. He was’t here today to lay traps, but to find them; to better understand his potential competitor. A novice, surely, if not an outright fool - someone who hadn’t learned yet that one rotten apple would quickly see the whole lot thrown out to the hogs. Sarkan thought there were enough fruits to go around, if they picked carefully. 

It was a dreary day, the kind with a fog that seeped into your bones and took them in its teeth. All the edges of the world were muzzy-soft with muted colors, and even most sounds were swallowed up by the thick layer of needles and duff. But Sarkan’s ear still twitched at a whisper of movement, and he lifted his head to find a figure moving beyond him in the fog, little more than a silhouette. He might have let them pass unremarked, but his muscles were growing stiff, and everything was damp and cold, and he hadn’t heard another voice for hours. 

So he called after them, in his low baritone, and smiled when they looked his way. “Traveler - mind if I join you for a spell?” 

Sarkan

The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.

 

Why not, she said, and he dropped his muzzle and started toward her, never mind that he could tick off a handful of reasons why not. It was a little like one of those party games so enjoyed by the wealthy; any of one of them could be the killer.

“My thanks,” he answered, when he was near enough to speak at a standard volume. Still, the fog did its best to dampen the words. Her shape had condensed from the suggestion of a horse to the girl she was, remarkably distinct; Sarkan made no secret of the way his dark blue eyes looked over her, though the only place they lingered at all was the hurl bat at her hip. Then he raised a brow and began to walk again, ferns trailing cold damp across his legs as he ambled down the path. He didn’t ask where she was headed, but he took care to match his long stride to her pace.

Somewhere in the trees a woodpecker trilled, loud in the gloom. He flicked an ear absent-mindedly toward it, then back to his companion, idly wondering what her business was here. Less or more nefarious than his own? She was young, around the age he had been when he left home, and her coat did not look as winter-thick as other Deluminans he had met.

Yet she did not hold herself the way a child did, did not smile as openly to the stranger she’d allowed to join her. Sarkan was glad she was suspicious, if that’s what that coolness was. There were terrible people in the world.

“That’s a remarkable axe you have,” he said, and made no effort to hide the admiration in his voice. Now he looked back at her - or rather, the weapon she wore - with the appreciation any tradesman had for a master’s work. He’d never held one that had been meant for felling men, not trees, and her ownership of it made him more curious than anything else about her presence here. "Is it common in these parts to be so artfully weaponed?”


@Apolonia oh you <3