Dahozhoni Meadow the red crown

buzzards crooned a symphony of ruin in the windswept ether, a choir thundering forth the arrival of an unholy audience.

sand-kissed and weary, a voice soared high above the idle chatter of a skittering trio. “we claim this land tonight,” the command ushered forth with honey-thick ambition. the flutter of an eyelid later and the bodies are dancing to the beat of soaring wings.

one acolyte delivered a hide of finely tanned leather, another the satchel of freshly fermented fruits plucked from a vinery in the far south. their figures sway nimbly amongst one another as shumura lay sprawled amongst the wildflowers, the gold of her gaze snared to the far stretching desert surrounding them.

the perfume of death teased the air and she felt a surge arise as new breath in her lungs. a moment later and she was bounding toward the three, a kissed placed to each chin as they prepared the encampment.

“the one who waits sings in the breeze. this land will be o u r s.”

Today for Moisés everything is too bright and too loud, and his temper chafes like the thighs of a working animal, and the sensation of his breaths against the back of his throat is unbearable, and even counting to threes—which is the safest number, la trinidad, la tríada, o la trinitaria, which to him may well be the atom—fails to soothe him, so his mind desperately chases its own tail, and what it catches are Lanza's words from before—

Porque hago lo que me dicen

—and he almost grasps what the spear had meant, that is, the real words beneath the surface, but voices, real voices, distract him and his eyes somehow find the foundations of a nascent Babel and its queen regent, a terribly beautiful woman who sits like an effigy carved from baetyl, un zopilote overhead casting a sickle-shaped shadow so that for a moment she has a comet's tail, only in black instead of the usual spate of white.

and as the vultures hover in bleak delight, it is a reaper that manifests from the vile depths of purgatory. as if a sculptor had torn out their own teeth to build the foundation of his reptilian bones. broken nails now splintered whiskers as gouged eyes misshaped the clay that once molded him. 

impure, imperfect, impious. and she is delighted by it. 

an acolyte preens through the sensitive fur tracing from ear to cheekbone as she watches the wraith watch her, watch him, watch them. they are lively spinning webs of declaration to the reaches of the sacred meadow. poison seeped to soil and rain, their mark left through shrouded runes. 

a shoulder rolls to dismiss her attendant and in the next moment she is spinning away, the sway of her tail a test to their distant witness.

She sees him! His mouth goes dry. Her foot-servants are insubstantial, like shadows thrown on cave walls, thrown by the light of her fey mantle. A noise bubbles to his lips, a shapeless exclamation in a language no one (not even him) speaks.

But she turns away, and Moisés is certain that if he lets her leave his line of sight, he will never see her again. He makes his way up the hill, clods of dirt slipping under each clumsy step.

¡Espere! ¿Quién eres tú?