Zack had excused himself from the company of his three brothers to wander around the city for a while. Helpfully he was able to procure from Ezekiel a hooded jacket with which to conceal himself, although it was a tight fit on the far larger coyote. [i]"Well,"[/i] Zack had thought to himself as he winced in the constricting hood, [i]"At least it's not the sack I was wearing over my head on the way into the city."[/i] 

The farmer Zack had acquired that sack from was pretty pleased with the arrangement, ultimately. As it had turned out, he had long ago received a curse from Zack himself: he was hexed in such a way that if he tried to say the word "fish", he could only do so backwards. When Zack, unfazed by the farmer's yelling and threats, agreed to at last reverse this curse in exchange for a simple potato sack, the farmer was at first stunned, and then overwhelmed with joy. The farmer couldn't believe his luck! And so it was that Gort Symons, lah'na farmer, could after so long order his favorite foodstuff with minimal embarrassment. When he broke the news to his family, they were overcome with tears of joy. Zack couldn't for the life of him remember what the farmer had even done to earn his ire in the first place, but at least he had got a potato sack out of it several years on. The eye slits he had to leave with his teeth; as he learned, the blunt head and butt of his staff didn't quite do the trick.

And so Zack wandered the streets, looking inconspicuously conspicuous. People who saw his overly tightly bound hood mostly just assumed him a member of some obscure religious order most masochistic. It certainly beat self-flagellation as a practice, and was at the very least much easier for parents to explain to their children. You also don't need to cover a child's eyes from a man wearing overly tight clothing, usually; you always had to do this when a shirtless man came by, lashing himself. Unless if the child had a particularly strange upbringing, but maybe that's not for me to judge. 

Zack had no destination in mind, it was simply just refreshing to be able to walk among actual crowds of people again. He had spent many months out in the woods, just like the fairytales said he does. From time to time he had even bumped into the children who had gone out on dares to find "Cackling Zack's Shack", or whatever it was his supposed abode was called in their imaginations. Zack merely took amusement at these visitors, although they were arguably his most consistent contact with anything but wildlife during those months of isolation. To keep up appearances, he would often threaten and scare the children away, although he had never actually cursed any he could recall. But if the threat was enough to do it, was following through with the actual action that needed?

He glanced up at the sign of an inn with longing. He promised his brothers he wouldn't be out long, but he had not enjoyed the pleasure of a drink for such a long time. As if to assuage his guilty conscience, he began to consider that maybe if he made lodgings here, he wouldn't burden his brothers with having to make space for him in their already cramped house. This was enough to spur him to wander in.

"Hail, inkeeper. Some mead, please!" said Zack merrily as he rifled through his pockets for some coin.