Luneshale Pass hielo

there remains the matter of the woman. soto searches for her, a hare clutched in his jaws. 

it is not altruism that bid him to check @Silvertongue’s welfare. rather, it’s a sense of pragmatism. he knows the dark humors of his brother, and knows that a man kept busy, with appetite fed, is a content man — but a man with undefined purpose and undirected hunger has a cobra’s aspect; mercurial, cruel, and capricious. 

so long as she walks, she will pull in the eye of juarèz; this soto prefers, as it grants him a freedom from the jaguar’s thumb. 

finding her, he throws the hare at her feet. cómela.

"tu hermano ya me ha dado de comer." silvertongue's dilated gaze shimmered with the visions in which she walked; a flick of her paw sent the hare flopping onto its opposite side in the dust. in the brief moment of silence, her stomach growled loudly, a betrayal. a revelation. "por supuesto, me dio de comer otras cosas." the betrayal of her body was forgotten; she fixed the luminous void of her stare on soto, the seduction of her slow grin a mockery. "que mas has venido a darme?"

she kicks the hare away. rude, but soto can’t help the grin that follows as her stomach betrays her. 

he shrugs. he is no nanny, and he’s under no false pretense that he’s here as her savior. his gaze holds her a long time, measuring each scar, each tuft of disheveled fur, the smoothing of flesh where juarèz had laid atop her, the missing leg. her body a map to all the injustices sustained since her birth. 

he takes the hare and pulls skin from flesh, chewing. nada. between mouthful of gristle, he points to her missing leg. ¿quièn te quitó eso? who took that leg from you?

nothing? she pretended to be disappointed, preening her tail with smooth claws while he stared at her. silvertongue's frequent dancing with the emerald ghosts had absorbed much of her unnerved feeling — and yet soto frightened her. "luché contra cuatro soldados." and i lost, was the unsaid thing, something to amuse him while she closed the cage of her teeth around wren's name and the mystery of that surgical procedure now lost to a mind robbed more each day.

another strip of flesh as he ate a meal intended for her; a gesture to show two things — one, he was capable of cruelty as easily as he was capable of kindness — and two, that the meat he brought was unpoisoned.

he wonders how much of her mind has melted under juarèz’s application of pharmaceuticals — the man may be callous, but he knows his trade well. soto knew better than to ever touch the stuff; at times, he saw a film clinging behind the eyes of practice subjects, and wondered if that was the last signal of a dying brainwave; a fantastic firework before lights out forever.

four fighters had advanced upon her, and she was somehow still alive. soto considers this news with amusement; either they were bad fighters, or she was a wicked one. before the leg loss, anyway.

he’s surprised they let her live. ¿por qué?

"uno de ellos tiene una deuda conmigo que queria cobrar." riverclan faded to a pinlight; qeya river to brighter memories starting their sepia fraying. the faces of her wife and their children remained harshly garish, crying out to her in the night — her smile was radiant, a beautifully cheerful thing in the sunny environs of the endless desert. "y tu, soto?" the dark eyes never abandoned their coldness. "cuando decidio que queria seguir y no liderar?"

another rough tug of reluctant sinew. soto weighs her answer. whatever debt it was, does it matter anymore? she’s captive to a man far worse than her four tormentors that chiseled off her leg.

a barb aimed his way by her last line of question. he sets aside the mangled hare, fragile ribs fanned outward like the spectacular display of neural crests on a fish.

there’s no pleasantry in either of their eyes. what tenuous goodwill he has vanishes under her masterfully keen tongue, still sharp despite the dulling haze of her sedatives. quando decidio convertirte en puta?

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trilling laughter, butterflies beneath riverclan's stars, frost riming the side of the qeya's stone walls. "cuando vi cuanto pagarían los hombres por mi coño," silvertongue answered, and laughed again. "ahora tengo a tu hermano." press, press; a knifeblade goading the feral creature. "el cree que me tiene." now she approached him; now she boldly drew forth into the bristling rampart of his malicious eyes; "pero no puede dejarme en paz. dia y noche, soto, le robo sus sueños." her lips were warm, her breath scented with the mellowing purity of the never-ending green. "yo soy su droga."

it’s malice he sees in her eyes as she pulls close, curling like a snake around its prey. soto doesn’t see the appeal — she’s pretty, yes, but disfigured — too hard and too tumbled around by the cold knocks of life to be anything lovely.

but she’s right — juarèz does enjoy his time with her.

drug or not, one thing separates her from what cannot be quit and its the tender stirring of life beneath her skin. te pueden matar. his tone so civil it belies the chilling message below it; observational, clinical, detached. siempre hay otra chica.

he lets this sink in and wonders if she would arrive at her own conclusion; to see the true reason the jaguar employed — required even — the cold sensibilities of his brother.

"otra chica. yo no." remaining close, poised, the glitter of moonworlds in the onyx pools of the glassy eyes. "siempre he vivido bajo un hombre con ese poder." with a flick of his wrist, ramesses might have ended her, or had her ended before him. queen satsu; suppose she tired of the plaything and put her on the midden instead? not a servant would have turned their head. soto did not understand, and neither did his foolish brother; her fear of men had stopped existing long ago. "si me matas antes de que tu hermano se aburra, mi fantasma lo verá mearse en tus ojos." her eyes said soto was weak, and slowly silvertongue withdrew from the immediate net of his arms.

some men might find the unabated fire in silvertongue intriguing. that artful balance of power and flame, the game of keeping it stoked without feeling its indiscriminate bite. soto sees the fire for what it is, and knows the game always ends with one party pulling away scorched.

does she know how many dead girls he’s seen? girls who said the same thing, believed it earnestly, even — right until the hour their deaths were writ across the spoiled dirt, and their throats cut mid-wail. even now he can see disbelief widen their eyes, as that final knowing sank within them.

 he thinks it would be smarter to play stupid - to be dull and compliant, so that the brothers would never know of the hate flickering beneath her breast. so that they’d let their guard down enough, allowing silvertongue the appointed chance of slipping free while they slept.

she pulls away, but the perfume of juaréz’s cocktail lingers on her breath. no estará en mi pedido. ustedes chicas nunca lo divierten mucho.

some men need only be his brother. soto claimed the panther gave such orders, and silvertongue did not doubt him. but to lay passive and compliant, to be errantly weak, boring; did he not comprehend that the feline's power was in the breaking? she had not broken; she had only bent and bent and bent. "soy una mujer, soto." now she caressed his ears with dulcet, pulled upon the earlier fire of his anger, stoked; "si he de morir, morire." her children were safe. her wife was safe. akavir was unknown. she had burnt the bridges and kicked the ropes into the ash. they had crossed the inferno she now faced. they were free. her laughter was a wreathing of snow in the desert. "y cuando juarèz te diga 'salta, perrito,' te estare esperando, cabron." silvertongue turned; the glinting eyes winked out as she turned them to search across the dunes. and soto went ignored.

with this much medicine to her head, soto wonders if she’s delusional. stumpy, drugged, missing a leg — how is she to escape? perhaps her mind is her sanctuary, and it is here she resides, pulling out the fantastical and laying it against his ears in sweet tones just saccharine enough they disguise realism’s encroaching terror.

he rises. there’s no utility in further conversation. in acts of warring words she might have the high ground, but it’s soto standing clear of mind, no missing leg, free — while she writhes in the dirt reveling in her womanhood. and what blessing did her gender bring her? it was a curse; were she not a warm place for juaréz to bury his dick, she’d have been dispatched weeks ago. her sole merit was the steaming cunt housed beneath the soft curve of her thighs.

he knows the man with the last word was often the first to die. no impulse urged him to counter her rejoinder. while she looks away, he seizes the hare between his teeth and quits the unpleasant prickle of her company.

he hopes later when her stomach bucks once more, his face swims in her vision.