As long as he'd been tucked away in that jungle, the masked man had not paid the local fauna a tenth of the attention it deserved.

The thought struck him one morning while he sat perched on a low branch beyond the waterfall, a mango in his gloved hand. A man-sized reptile stood several feet away, eyeing its intended prey wolfishly.

"How civilized of you, friend," he commended it, "To have developed a taste for... scorched flesh." He lifted the fruit to his lips beneath the shadow of the half-raised mask.