Two Eyes Cenote it’s yours and it’s mine (hand it over)

just setting up a scene to chuck in her thread log. please dm me if any assumptions are not ok. single replies are ofc always welcome if u guys want this in ur threadlog too <3

the heron’s skull sat on a stone plinth, remnants of gristle clinging to its freshly degloved beak. its eye was lodged inside its mouth, its bill wrapped shut with its own gristly intestine. flowers packed each orbit, and a stone sat deep where a tongue once probed. 

qiao’s retinue had been made known to those of muat-riya. @Stormchaser tended to the children, his dark face mulling as he directed @Rowdy and @Riot to their quarters. 

the priestess closed her eyes. there were many rites to perform still. eset’s health was tenuous; in the long hours thereafter the priestess tended to her as she was allowed; often silent in her work, giving passerbys only a glance as they visited eset in her chambers. 

the road ahead of the woman would be long — and without joy. if only the lost souls expelled from eset’s breast could be recovered!

she clucked her tongue in curbed disappointment, restocking the herbs just outside eset’s chamber room.

it had been a lifetime, and only a few short weeks, since his grim march from dragonspine. in that time rowdy’s face grew longer. his limbs sturdier. and his eyes lost their natal blue, transitioning to a glittering color that was his family’s legacy.

he was so tired all the time. the youthful energy that should be his birthright was sapped from him by qiao’s careful potions. he grew, but he did not seem healthy — one look at riot and one could see the disparity; one a sickly orchard, the other a fruiting tree.

he followed stormchaser demurely. camp here. sleep here. at times he wondered in his more altruistic moments, just how deep the crone’s claws penetrated this man’s heart — but those moments were brief and often eclipsed by long bouts of murkiness.

the crone showed a strange interest in them both, when she checked in on them. she poked at their ribs, she measured the fat on their topline — he was trotted out like a fat sow before market, feeling the invisible grip that snared his throat only tighten whenever she was around.

when she was absent, it was like the sweet lull of a summer storm. stormchaser did not question his health, or show a strange fixation on his tail. in these moments he could breathe, his mind letting down its defensive walls long enough for a spark of life to show in his eyes.

today they were brought to a hall smoothed over by the wear of many feet. rowdy felt a shiver seize his spine as he passed the glaring eyes of the cenote’s deep pools. he could not articulate it, but he sensed souls in those deep pits.

his eyes trained ahead as they marched past. he was grateful for riot’s sturdy presence — the only remnant of his past life that remained.

the life seemed to drain from rowdy,
and riot became more fascinated with death.
qiao’s appearances were infrequent, yet the only interesting stimulus in his life. he found intrigue in her rites and rituals. meddling paws found their way into her stashes, only to be dragged away.
relentless; he is a fly that could not be swatted.
strangely, he enjoyed the attention, and only became more delinquent.
somewhere in the desert, the pieces of his old life dried up in his mind.
a small heart grew to care for one thing—
himself.