[AW] they all jump when they hear the sirens;

[Sarkan]

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?”