Two Eyes Cenote Rattlesnake

She had not said a word to him.

She had scarcely looked in his direction, save to deliver the daily meals prepared by her hand each morning and evening. This night’s supper was a simple one by palace standards: a moderately sized perch from the serpent with three honeyed berries to wash it down.

The air is dim and cool when she enters into the dank holding chamber. Eset glimpses @Machiavelli's pale silhouette in the corner of her eye as she lays the fish upon the shale. It’s followed by the offering of wine- then she turns promptly to leave.

Personal flavor roll for lucidity: 10

He had been wrong to trust her, the coyote woman with her wildfire eyes and soft-spoken promises. He had bared his heart to her, only to find it shattered in the cruel, unforgiving reality of his imprisonment.

He heard her light step against the rock, and the dropping of food into his cell. He refused to look up, to acknowledge her presence. His eyes remained fixed on some indeterminate point on the floor, stare blank and unwavering.

It was not until Eset's footsteps had receded, fading into the labyrinthine depths of the prison that she would hear a bloodcurdling shriek echo after her.

A feral howl rends the air!

Eset lurches backward on her heels, paralyzed, every hair on her body tensing with immediate fear! She bursts back into the chamber, expecting to see blood or poison or- or Herod-!

“What is wrong!?” She demands, swallowing her panic, forcing herself to detach from his ravings!

The dog's thin frame pressed heavily against the rough-hewn floor, tears sopping into the shaggy fur of his forelimbs as they wrapped tightly around his head. He made little noise save for the ragged, desperate gasps for breath that rasped painfully in his throat, and the scuffling of his hind paws as they pushed him further into the wall opposite Eset, as though if he pushed hard enough, he would meld with the stone.

Above him, a fly buzzed around, its delicate wings creating a soft, persistent hum. It flitted erratically through the stale air, its tiny body darting from one spot to another, oblivious to the turmoil below. The fly’s presence seemed almost absurd in its innocence, a stark contrast to the palpable fear radiating from the disgusting animal.

Kill it, he managed to choke out, his voice a thin, broken thread of sound, barely more than a whisper. His ears smashed tightly against his skull. Please, came the pathetic sob. A wretched sight, a pathetic creature consumed in his own mind.

The buzzing grew faint for a moment, allowing him a trembling peek from under the safety of his arms. The insect continued its lazy circuit, landing briefly on the damp fur of his forelimbs, its tiny legs a mere tickle against his skin before it took off again, drawn to some unseen interest. Its presence, insignificant in any other context, sent the dog careening from his hiding place.

One slender arm shot through the gap between stones where Eset stood, nails etching horrible grooves into the porous rock, as his head tried to force itself through after.

What she sees makes her gasp! She can hardly look at him but for the mess of his face!

His muzzle is lanced with thorns, evidence of old blood and bruising fouling his porcelain beyond that of recognition. Through the porthole his long spidery fingers twitch, grasping. Concern tears the stoicism from her face, she steps forward so she can look into his eyes.

“Bring @Tavina, lantana leaves from her stores and washing cloths,” the hebsut shouts up to a waiting fellahin.

Khusobek- why would he do it? Her muscles tighten. Whirring drones in the air near her head and she snaps the fly between her teeth.

There was nothing behind his frantic eyes but the look of a beast trapped in a cage set ablaze. The world around him dissolved into a chaotic blur, the only sound the relentless, droning hum that garbled his thoughts and made his skull vibrate maddingly.

When the buzzing abruptly ceased, the dog collapsed, his body going limp save for the heaving of his chest as he sobbed. His once tense frame lay crumpled over the half-wall of rough stone.

Moments passed before he could regain even a semblance of composure. His weeping gradually subsided into shuddering breaths, each inhale and shaking exhale a struggle to reclaim some fragment of control. His fur, damp with tears and sweat, clung to his mess of a face like a funeral shroud.

He could not bear to look into the mirror of the woman's gaze, all he would have to offer her was the churning of furious betrayal and confusion. His heart pounded against his ribs, each thud a painful reminder of the trust he had misplaced.

It had been his gravest mistake to offer her vulnerability before, and yet here he had made the same one again. He slid down the wall to the floor of his cell, the thin body tucked out of sight from funeral pyre eyes. The hoarse voice came as nothing more than a whisper— a question that he did not expect an answer to, Why?