Morningside Cuesta [m] vieja

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to prove oneself again was a task. silvertongue had learned to be nimble once more, had learned to be quick. now she paired the two with a hunt. the stag had been easy enough to flush, but coursing after it along the uneven ground spilled silvertongue once. twice. on the third time she scraped mud from her shoulders and shouted a swear which spilled into the paling glow of early twilight.

Las chicas guapas no deberían decir esas palabras. 

The voice was a thick rumble. 

Juárez had watched. Crouched in the dark of night with a gleaming predatory glow. The girl had run and fumbled herself. Again and again. Such a strange game to play. That she would weaken herself in these acts. And with such determination. The jaguar could only assume such acts of self-slaughter must be acted with unyielding belief. 

He prowled forward, looming nearby as he lifted his bloody eyes to the stag. 

Ah, cazando.

mud dripped through well-coiffed fur. silvertongue narrowed her eyes at the prowling figure which emerged, not with fear, only an annoyed intrigue. "que pasa con las mujeres feas que follan?" the vice traded before she realized he had spoken in a language she only heard now from time to time in the voices of her children. she did not trace his eyes to her quarry. "de donde vienes?" he knew what she meant.

La noche. 

Juárez ignored her first remark. She was no ugly woman. 

The jaguar drew a little closer to her. As though personal space was not appreciated or respected. The dark of his eyes traced her features with unabashed interest. 

¿Y de dónde caíste?

her flippancy invited him closer, and silvertongue cursed herself for it. the man was close now, too close. "el aire," she purred with no outward tell of trepidation. her pulse raced beneath the velvet cowling of her grin. here was a man with more than a hunger for feminine flesh. all her nerves knew it, screamed that she was alone. but to flee was to lead a monster to the qeya. it was only an empty courtesan who plied him now. "no te dio la noche un nombre?" biding her time as hand snuck toward the proverbial door-handle behind her back.

From the air. 

The jaguar chuckled and lifted his gaze to the skies to see the drifting clouds and expanse of night beyond it. But in that dark was a glimmer of silver. It dappled across the inky sea to illuminate the black. 

Luz de las estrellas. 

The woman asked for a name. And he had no qualms with offering it. The ego swelled with those who knew his name. It became unconquerable. It carried him with pride and confidence and the easy gait of a man who knew what he was capable of. 

Juárez... the man offered to her with an expectant lowering of his eyes.

he spoke of starlight, an odd subject against the clear ferocity of his cruel face. her eyes traced that scar, wondering what sort of violence he had invited or begun to earn such a mark. when her gaze found the glint of his teeth under the stitched lip, she felt the fear again, cold in her gut. he was juárez. she was "belen." but where there should have been camaraderie in the shared tongue, in the similar origin of their names, silvertongue felt only that slow and welling terror. her smile held itself in her eyes, her mouth. "un viajero?" she asked, trying not to notice how the sun was dimming, how long streaks of darkness were finding their way over the taiga.

Belen asked if he was a traveler. The jaguar shrugged as if that wasn't important to what he was. And it wasn't. The earth beneath his paws was merely a path to greater things. 

Un vendedor, he gave her instead. 

As the man turned to face her fully, he saw the way her eyes traced the scar in his lip and the glint of his ivory teeth peered through the marred flesh of his face. He let her stare at him. He wanted her to remember his face. 

De visiones. 

Was that not appealing?

a seller of visions. she wanted to laugh, but knew better than to mock a man with such heavy jaws. he loomed over her, he and that terrible scar. her mouth was dry. male lust was easily handled; drain a suitor and he became malleable. she sensed no such waiting softness in her companion. the night came, and she almost choked as it began to sweep over them, over she and the man thrumming with a cold anticipation. "lo siento, señor," silvertongue sighed with an actress' polished emotion. "no tienes nada que quiera comprar." now then; fingers trembling on that handle; she wiped the rest of the drying muck from her shoulder, smiled a pleasant goodbye at juárez, and rose smoothly to leave — in the opposite direction of the qeya. of course.

The starlight woman seemed disinterested. The smell of her betrayed some of her nerves. The swift way she moved to excuse herself from his presence was irksome and thrilling at once and the jaguar allowed the feeling to consume him for only a moment before he stepped in front of her and lifted his proud head. 

¿Y si te doy algunos gratis? 

If not to buy then to have without payment. A test. 

Juárez had dragged larger women through the mud. She would not be difficult for him to subdue.

juárez blotted her path. silvertongue shot him a chastising look that held more fire than she did in her limbs. anger, true, but all of her wished to run. she fought the terror, the creeping malaise of it; "nada es gratis." silvertongue named what he wanted, flung the game back into his face, even as her limbs began to tremble in earnest. she stepped once to the left, another step, skirting him. but silvertongue knew he would not let her leave, and it was only fear for her very pups that kept her from crying out in horror for anyone to stop this. holding her breath, silvertongue felt for a third step.

Ah, so she had discovered the truth. 

Undeterred, his eyes pierced her with blood-stained canines. The nervous glance of her eyes, the motion of her paw, the attempt to leave. She knew. And she did not want to play the game of the salesman anymore, it seemed. 

Juárez lowered his head slightly, hovering near the soft hairs of her snout as he met her eyes with his own. 

Si lo tomas, no te mataré.

faintly silvertongue knew where she was, the courseways between taiga and rising sun. the valley she knew as much as any part of her; if she could get there, she could disappear where riverclan had once stood, or run to kvarsheim, or flee to swiftcurrent — a small, soft grin unspooled when the man leant close, and then she bit for him as harshly as she was able. only when his flesh gave did she leap aside, whirling toward the valley in a headlong run that cost her every bit of collected energy. he would be behind her. silvertongue only prayed she could remain five steps ahead until she found terrain more familiar.

The snap of her teeth was met unflinching. She struck against the jaguar's snout and sliced it before she turned to flee. 

There was a swipe of pink as his tongue lashed across the mark she had made in his nose. Juárez watched her for a moment to gauge her speed and her stamina. Adrenaline would carry her a good distance. Fear would increase it. But when it wore away, he had witnessed the way she had tumbled against the earth in pursuit of the stag. A hunter trying to find their strength again. It would be easy to strip it from her. 

Juárez pursued. He loved when they ran.

breath drawn; foliage slashed across her starsilvered face. she leapt a fallen tree and went on, heart beating fast, blood pumping. ears slanted to hear, to hear the steps behind her. and her mind held the cries of a frightened bird. the cuesta curved harshly, the eastern edge of the great drop catching the woman, spilling her over the edge. then she did shout, clinging feebly to one side, clawing her way back from the boulders and the stone teeth below, caught between a bruising fall and the monster glimpsed when she looked frantically upward.

A frantic mind would always make mistakes. 

The patience of the hunting jungle cat was unmatched. The starlight woman was followed. His pace was even and hungry. Each stretch of his sinewy limbs was a testament to the power beneath his flesh. And though he had hoped she would be easier to persuade, the jaguar would not complain when she made him give chase. The chase was most thrilling. The chase was the blood in his very veins. 

As he loomed over her scrambling form, his head canted curiously to the left. 

¿Quieres caer?

she did not. but it no longer mattered. silvertongue had made a choice when she had run, and now she lay looped in its consequence. yet she was not within his jaws, and that counted as a victory. "vete al infierno!" she seethed up at him, releasing small paws from her earthen grip and plummeting into the morass of round boulders below. her only regret was that her fall had not been tall enough, a realization made when she blacked out for a moment, only to gasp to consciousness. new bruises welted beneath her skin. but now the drop was between he and she, and silvertongue tried to crawl to her feet, coughing on soil and her own pained ribs.

Juárez tsk'ed his tongue to the roof of his mouth with a gleaming smile. The starlight girl fell - through the black and down to the rocks below. The sickening little thud and umph of her body made the jaguar's skin prick with delighted excitement. 

Keep wearing yourself down, Belen. Keep diminishing that light. 

Calm as a predator in pursuit, the man began to pick his way down to the bottom of the drop. A soft hum formed on his lips. The reaper's gentle tune.

with great effort silvertongue clambered to her paws, weaving on weary legs. the run had gone out of her, washing from her flesh as if it were water. but the fight was not gone from silvertongue; knowing she could run no more only whirled her with a harder flash of teeth toward the pursuer. as he slithered down the earthen cliff, melding with the long shadows cast by large stones, she watched the night slowly swallow him. keeping her ground, she snarled a low note into the slipping gloom, promising a fight for as long as breath was in her lungs. for her children. for the qeya. for wren.

The jaguar drew closer to her, following the stretch of shadows with practiced paws as he approached her tail-end. The woman snapped her teeth and lashed at him with her strength. He remained just out of reach of her. He watched the way her silver-light fur prickled and fluffed itself along her backside. Such a shapely young woman, too. She did not lack beauty. She would make a good wife. 

Haces mucho ruido. 

Juárez expected another snap of her teeth in response. He would wait for her to wear herself to the bone. And he would collect her bones and carry them to the red stone of the lowlands for his brother.

he mocked her. he toyed with her. silvertongue knew he would follow again, would lunge the moment that her back was turned. no growl followed, only the hot look of one ready to die, if only her dignity could be preserved. a step back. another. her claws flexed in the sandy loam and she waited for juárez to make his own move, circling, circling with that same stare locked upon his face as he forced her to move.

Oh, pero mírate bailar! 

A throaty chuckle followed his rumbling applause. 

Juárez lunged at her with snapping teeth. There was no purpose in the motion except to watch her slink back, to shy away, to try to shield herself from the ivory glint of his daggers. The game had reached its greatest peak. The moment in which he would watch as she tired herself. As she gave up.

his teeth were pale thorns in the crowding night. silvertongue took a breath and threw herself into them, grunting at the impact of his hard muzzle and then the knives cutting into the flesh below one arm. she wrapped herself around juárez, a desperate feline thing which shredded at his ears and tried to pluck eyes from their setholds before she was slammed back against the stony ground of the cuesta, her mouth filled with a bloody tuft of his fur. and silvertongue now was screaming, in rage, in wrath, in promise.

The way that he did not shy from her snapping teeth was disturbing. Each slice of her mouth against his flesh was a tingling breath of arousal inside him. Each desperate huff of air from her lips and her nose filled him with a gust that would carry his sails through the act of dominating her. 

The jaguar's strong legs pushed, forcing her weaker frame back and against the hard clutch of the earth. Teeth scored against him until she had clutched at his sun gold coat and tore tufts of it from him. The predator lowered his head to her, moving to push his paw against her throat and apply force. 

Te sientes tan bien cuando luchas contra mí. 

A sick purr.

she twisted around his arm, clawing it to welling weals, and yet, inexorably he stole her breath. there was none left with which to spit a last curse into his face; silvertongue only locked her eyes to his scarred ugliness and grinned in a hot defiance. let this be the end, then. not one she had expected but one no less courted — no less. the faces of her young ones danced through her mind, followed by wren's rangy, confident stride; yes. they would not suffer. they would thrive; energies pouring into a blessing for her babies as jetblack misting sparkled like bear fur at the corners of her staring, hateful eyes.