don't bother with the trace,

@Jinx: (no need to join, just alerting you to the thread prompt)

He had been reclusive as of late — a lengthy trip to the salted shores of the sea at their back had rejuvenated the old male, and he had carefully washed the blood from his coat in the surf before setting off on a hunt. A spindly fawn had been dragged back to the sands, and there Lecter had killed her in honor of his God, before bathing joyfully in its blood.

He had remained a few more days, in communion with Sos, letting tears for Shearwater's demise at last mingle with the sea. Lecter contemplated the scar upon his hip, remembering the horror of the night during which he and Clarice had been marked. And he lay in the golden bed next to the sea, and he dreamt, free of the cloying poppy or explosive mushroom.

But now he had returned, without pomp, and reinstated himself among them. Sitri had risen above him, but Lecter liked the brute enough not to care, and returned to his den, to take up again the never-ending tend of herbs. Afternoon light found him outside the rocky overhang, quiet, contemplative, and somehow approachable despite the new blood that dripped slowly from his withers.

But despite his apparent calm, at length he bristled, snarling into the darkness. A rank scent of badger had invaded, perhaps a mother intending to begin a new set with her cubs, but the Delta would not allow this, and another growl greeted the slavering of the badger mother within, but he did not enter — not yet.