"Tarrin, pull in your tail," Sarraya hissed in a low whisper. He couldn't hear her wings either, but from the sound of her voice, she had to be right near his ear, which was flattened a bit under the hood. "You're bulging."

He attended to that quickly, pulling his tail off the back of the cloak, pressing it up against his leg and wrapping the excess around his shin and ankle to keep it out of mischief. If anyone noticed, they didn't tell him anything as he passed through the gate and beyond the large pen, moving into the city beyond.

And he was not impressed. This nameless city smelled ten times worse than any city he'd ever visited. It was so bad that he had to put his paw over his nose, giving away the fact that he wasn't just a really tall human. The place was a cesspool of every bad smell he could remember, peppered with brand new horrible smells he couldn't identify. The city streets were unpaved dirt, dirt coated and salted with sand as people's feet and animals' hooves ground the sand into the packed soil of the street. It was a good thing Saranam saw little rain, else the entire city would sink into the quagmire of mud that would surely result. The lack of deep ruts in the streets said that there was little rain here to make paving the streets necessary. But there was water, usually ditches running close to buildings made of brown mud bricks, liquid waste and urine tossed out from the low-built structures' upper story windows. Dead rats and other unpleasant things floated in those open cesspits, which flowed slowly but inexorably downslope, towards the river. The streets were populated with people dressed in plain, rugged robes and mantles of sturdy wool or that cotton-fiber, or plaxat fiber, the super-strong plant fiber clothing the Selani made. He could easily see all of them, for there was nothing to obstruct his view of the streets except for buildings. Not even the herd animals they kept in the city stood at his height, though there were some outside that were taller than him, and that allowed him to see as far down the street as he wished. There was a noticable lack of horses, or of litters or carriages that marked the wealthy. Everyone in this city seemed to work for a living, that, or the wealthy didn't come into the part of the city in which he currently moved.

His first encounter with a Saranite was abrupt. A child, no more than eight, bumped into his leg, then staggered back and fell down on his behind. The child's eyes were at the same level as his knee when he was standing, but now they were just over his ankle. He stopped and looked down at the young Saranite lad, who looked like an Arakite except for being a bit thinner. The boy got a good look at Tarrin's foot, then he stared up at him in slack-jawed awe. He sat there for a very long moment, then in a sudden burst of activity, he scrambled to his feet and rushed away.

The smell of roasting meat seeped in over the horrible miasma in the city, stirring his stomach to respond. That honestly surprised him, given that the place smelled so bad that, if he would have thought of food before that moment, it would have made him throw up. It had been a very long time since he'd had anything filling, and the growing he did while in cat form had burned much of the food he'd managed to eat during that time. Even with the place smelling as awful as it did, he found the need for a good meal irresistable.

Mutton. It was mutton. Most humans didn't like mutton, but to Tarrin it had a texture and flavor that was quite good. The smell was coming from a wide-doored building just down the street, a place that had the look of an inn or tavern. It had no conventional door, just wide shutters that were tied open. There was a window flanking each shutter at the door, which themselves had small shutters opened to each side of them. A piece of faded red cloth, with fringe that had been tattered long ago, was stretched over the door, attached over the shutters and held up by a pair of poles staked into the sandy ground to provide patrons with a bit of shade before entering or leaving.

Now that he noticed them, he saw alot of those shutters. They flanked windows, they were outside doorways even when there were doors. There was not a single door or window he could see that did not have shutters attached, and he understood why. If sandstorms were a fact of life in the region, then the people would obviously have prepared their homes and shops for them. The shutters would keep blowing sand out of their buildings. The slightly scarred and pitted look of the mud brick of the inn showed that sandstorms did come in, and that also explained why he hadn't seen any painted or whitewashed buildings. Everything was of that same mud brick, and it had to be. The blowing sand would scour away whitewash or paint, would strip off polished exteriors of stones and maybe even gouge out the mortar holding them together, leaving them worn and weakened. As damaging as the blowing sand was, it was only sensible to make buildings out of something that was cheap to replace and easy to repair.

The doorway was too small. He almost bumped his head on the entrance as he entered, as he turned to look towards the street warily as a shout arose, turning back around and realizing his peril at the last moment. He very nearly smacked his nose on the wall over the door before ducking under the mud brick wall and the doorframe which was attached to it. He was used to ducking under doors, but that was the first time he'd ever had the top of the door staring him in the face, taking up his entire field of vision when he bothered to look in that direction.

This height was going to take a lot of getting used to.

The interior of the inn was a bit hazy with smoke from a firepit against the right wall, over which roasted an entire lamb. There was boisterous carousing from the twenty or so men who were inside, drinking, eating, and talking among the tables set out in the floor and the booths built against the wall on the opposite side of the firepit. There were two lanky men behind a bar across from the door, and four serving women in very low cut dresses moved quickly and effortlessly among the tables with wooden trays bearing food and drink. It was much like many other taverns he'd seen in his time, but judging by the rather beaten look of the furniture in this place, it wasn't known for its well-mannered patrons. This place was more of a seedy dive than a respectful eating establishment.

Considering who he was, a seedy dive was probably a better place to be than some posh luxury inn. So long as they were willing to give up that roasted lamb, things would be just fine. There was bit of a lull in the conversations as a few of the patrons took notice of him, an unnaturally tall figure covered in a deep cloak. If he were them, he'd take notice too. It was only natural. Tarrin was very much out of place here, and he felt that way keenly. He didn't fear these strangers, not in the same ways that he felt in Dala Yar Arak, but the first twinges of anxiety at being among strangers was beginning to rear up. Probably the two months of being with nobody but Sarraya had dulled him a bit to his feral rejection of people he didn't know and trust. He didn't accept these people, but he didn't feel the same fear that he used to feel to come into their presence and possibly expose himself to whatever danger they posed. Then again, he was so hungry that he didn't really care if he feared them or not. The screaming coming from his belly, awakened by the smell of the roasting lamb, was enough to make him fight a Roc over it.

Money. He didn't have any money. He'd need it to get the lamb. "Sarraya, are you here?" he asked in the unspoken manner of the Cat.

"I'm right here," she said in a whisper. That was when he realized that she was sitting on his shoulder. The cloak's weight caused him to miss her negligible weight.