The Greatwood may have returned his friends to him, but Jigano had learned a healthy caution and respect for the forest. When he had approached Ronin at the Monster Hunter's Guild and asked for his help in finding a Wicker Woman and harvesting a branch, he had done so with more solemnity than their initial conversation had entailed, and he had been clear on warning of the dangers as far as he knew them.
He wouldn't have blamed the new father for choosing to stay behind with his daughter, having left her parentless once already, but he was grateful for the Guildmaster's company now. Their walk had begun around mid-morning, and now it was mid-afternoon, the heat of the day pleasantly broken by the shade of the great trees and the breeze that whispered and played among the branches as they walked, careful not to think about what they were looking for.
Now, however, Jigano raised an arm into the air, calling a nearby black raven to land on his green-patterned sleeve while he impressed upon it his desire to find a tree that closed around its victims. The bird was scavenger enough to indeed be familiar with the Wicker Women of the woods, and it rose, cawing, to begin leading them towards a patch of woods that seemed darker, gloomier... chillier, somehow. The summer greens and browns became interspersed with specimens of a more unsettling nature, their bark resembling skin and their soaring branches blocking out all but the memory of sunlight as the two men followed their dark-feathered guide deeper into the corpse grove.
"Did you do things like this very often in Northhaven?" he asked, with a quirk of a wry grin as he glanced to Ronin before turning his attention back on their surroundings, alert to the eerie quiet of the woods around them. On his shoulder, Isuma crouched, tail lashing uncertainly as wide golden eyes peered around, keeping watch for her companion in the direction he wasn't looking at any given time.
He wouldn't have blamed the new father for choosing to stay behind with his daughter, having left her parentless once already, but he was grateful for the Guildmaster's company now. Their walk had begun around mid-morning, and now it was mid-afternoon, the heat of the day pleasantly broken by the shade of the great trees and the breeze that whispered and played among the branches as they walked, careful not to think about what they were looking for.
Now, however, Jigano raised an arm into the air, calling a nearby black raven to land on his green-patterned sleeve while he impressed upon it his desire to find a tree that closed around its victims. The bird was scavenger enough to indeed be familiar with the Wicker Women of the woods, and it rose, cawing, to begin leading them towards a patch of woods that seemed darker, gloomier... chillier, somehow. The summer greens and browns became interspersed with specimens of a more unsettling nature, their bark resembling skin and their soaring branches blocking out all but the memory of sunlight as the two men followed their dark-feathered guide deeper into the corpse grove.
"Did you do things like this very often in Northhaven?" he asked, with a quirk of a wry grin as he glanced to Ronin before turning his attention back on their surroundings, alert to the eerie quiet of the woods around them. On his shoulder, Isuma crouched, tail lashing uncertainly as wide golden eyes peered around, keeping watch for her companion in the direction he wasn't looking at any given time.
