[P] one rich man in ten has a satisfied mind;

[Sarkan]

Sarkan The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.   Sarkan quite liked Novus so far.  The towns were charming, the vistas impressive, the weather relatively mild. And the citizens he’d met were as welcoming as they were diverse -  Which made the matter with the unicorn all the more unfortunate.  What bothered him the most was his lack of guilt. He’d never killed another equine before - someone who spoke, walked, laughed like he did. Someone he could have met in a tavern, shared a beer and a couple stories with. In all fairness, it had been self defense. The unicorn had interrupted him as he worked; Sarkan had looked up and there he’d been standing, and the Percheron had watched his expression go from panic to fury to resolve. As for himself, he’d only tightened his cloak around his shoulders and waited, his own face impassive, until he knew which reaction was warranted. After a moment the unicorn had smiled, and stepped forward, and bid Sarkan nearer, and he could feel the little stirring of compulsion like a stray wind beneath the cathedral boughs of the forest. Maybe he shouldn’t have played along, but he did, obeying, reciting his name when asked, coming closer, closer, until the unicorn lowered his horn like a spear and sprang -  Killing him hadn’t felt different than any other quarry. They all died the same. Sarkan made the scene look like a mauling (which it could have been, in a way), had left the horn, had made it more messy than his usual. Like a beast could have done it, or any murderous bastard.  After that it seemed best to leave the Dawn court for a while.  Now he strode through a field blanketed by a thin veneer of snow, the afternoon sun tracking winter-low beside him. He’d crossed a stream a little while back, and seemed to have left the forests behind when he did; the landscape had grown rolling, and rugged, and he could taste the sea on the cold air. Sarkan hadn’t had a real destination in mind, until a fellow traveler a few miles back had told him of a winery across the border in Terrastella. “The best in the country,” he’d proclaimed, “and don’t let those Night Court merchants tell you any different.” Sarkan, long since immune to most salesmen’s tactics, had laughed and said he wouldn’t.  By the time he found it the sky was a mixed palette of washes of pink and gold. He only recognized it by the neat and narrow rows of grapes, though they were only bare and twisting silhouettes. Sarkan was surprised and pleased to see the sea, winking blue between the rows of vines, and paused to watch it as he shifted his pack, in which his cloak lay folded and clean.  Then he ambled down the lane, the wind off the water whipping his mane into frothy peaks white like waves, whistling as he went.  @Red