Siyahdar

Deep in the forest where the moss grows over everything, there is a keeper who has not spoken in a hundred years. He does not need to. The dark patchouli of the undergrowth, the cold green of the moss, the old oud of the fallen trees, these speak for him.

Travellers who pass through say the woods grow quiet in his presence, the way a room quiets when someone important enters without knocking. They do not see him. They feel him, a weight in the air, a black musk beneath the leaves, the sense of being known by something that has watched the forest for longer than the kingdoms have had names.

He enters rooms before the people in them arrive. He is the cool hush before the storm, the green dark under ancient branches. To wear his scent is to carry a little of that silence, the kind that makes others lean closer, unsure why.