Luneshale Pass pantano

industrious niño has a new friend. 

@Nokht. 

soto’s still in recovery. but he’s curious. his cuts have scabbed over, but the scars on his face and eye are here to stay. reminders of his time in the dungeon. 

reminders of his pending vengeance, too. 

soto stops at the marble slab where the boy’s kept. he wonders if this is safiya’s sibling. 

but even then that connection won’t save him, if soto’s in a bad enough mood. 

the only thing is, he can’t decide which sends a better message. 

a dead boy — that’s a pretty strongly worded letter to the capital. fuck you, it says. nothing’s sacred, it screams in bold script. 

soto used to think children were to be protected at all costs. in khusobek’s hands, that world view's changed. the captain indirectly sowed his worse fear the day he took soto captive.

now, it's soto's life mission to show the captain just how unspeakably evil he can be. give him a true reason to fear for all those he loves.

he had not waited to set out from the cenote. if he was to be demoted and punished, let it be upon his return. safiya lay healing in akashingo and he should be there. but he was not, and under his watch another child had been taken.

hot winds brushed over the crocodile. he caught more than a trace of their fetid scent and paused to leave a marker for @Meseba.

get them out.

the boy taken, he had belonged to the priestess. but it was not for nokht he came now; it was for safiya.

and when he was near enough to see that the figure was soto, a roar cut upon the sands, and khusobek swept in to kill.

Sangre didn’t have a lot of interest in either brother. She was there for Octavio and Octavio only. But they were a gang, and she’d been in enough packs to know that meant looking out for each other. Who knew if they’d have her back in a pinch? But if she wanted them to, she’d have to show up also.

Which was why, when she saw the shape heading for Soto, Sangre didn’t hesitate. She sprinted to intercept, a feral growl resounding in her throat as she moved to hopefully knock the man away and engage him first.

The guy was injured. What was this dude even doing here?! Was he nuts? Or maybe just trying to finish the job?

Whatever. She wasn’t having it. She’d keep him off him if she could.

As it turned out, Medusa was not cool with the number decreasing further. She thought it’d be the best thing if she fetched the child. Khusobek could fight, and so could that other warrior, and she could sneak in and do what she needed to do. 

So much for no-takesbacksies. It didn’t mean she’d be getting involved, either. Fuuuuck no. She would just bring them back.

Of course that was when some other motherfucker interrupted the good sense of her sneaky plan. Look, it’d be one thing if rumor hadn’t gone around that these fuckers took the eye of another kid. How could she let this runt of hers live in a place like that? Anywhere else she might think, “hey, you’re probably better off… you won’t have a mom that ignores you, so…”

Argument was dead and gone here.

Ugh. Medusa was supposed to be the sneaky piece of the plan. The piece @Mesaba and Khusobek didn’t even know about. But if Khusobek went on dying before he could fully distract them… 

God dammit. This might, and probably was, kamikaze. But Medusa bolted for the redhead and hollered, hey there, gorgeous! I’ve come back for that baby boy you stole! Come and dance with me instead, leaving noooo mystery of her arrival. She cackled as she went for a back leg—there was no menace in the sound at all. 

Only a bit of the insanity that had possessed her to intervene at all.

His eyes erupt in fire.
Sicario rojo ambushes in the shale.
Another, fantasma, in his wake.
Taking Sangre's ankle.

Enraged, now.
Niño thrusts forward.
He knows he’s fighting for Soto and Sangre.
They are his country.

Doesn’t go for the throat of the red man.
Much as he wants to taste that blood.
Not the ghost, either.

It’s the cub, @Nokht, where his jaws seek to puncture.
Makes to grab him by the thin throat and lift him into the air.
The delicate life on exhibition.

Is it one the ants are willing to trade?
An ancillary squeeze given.
One for every bite on Soto and Sangre.

here comes the cavalry, red and bruised. soto’s barely got time to register his paramour’s arrival before a second thing comes to the scene, gurgling with incoherent laughter as she streaks towards sangre. 

sangre’s new, but she’s not to be fucked with. 

soto has the same idea as niño, but niño gets there first. probably for the better, in the child’s case. 

cooler heads might prevail, but soto’s tempted to take advantage of the temporary distraction and leap to khusobek’s throat. make a hole of it. matter of fact, make multiple holes to play around with later. 

he’s torn. 

but with sangre between him and khusobek, niño holding the child aloft like a sacrificial offering, and the wildling at sangre’s ankles, soto makes his move. 

he lunges for the unhealthy looking she-wolf, aiming for her neck as she bent down towards sangre’s hocks. if the child being imperiled doesn’t paralyze khusobek in his steps, perhaps seeing his ally between soto’s teeth might drain the blood right out from him.

The night had been long, and frightening, and miserably cold, and when the big wolves came to jeer at him he made himself small as he could and watched them with stifled terror, locked behind a tongue too inexperienced to reason with them. Not that it would've made a difference if he could, anyways.

A grotesque one had been stalking him all morning. Nokht wondered silently what had happened to his face. 

Same as the beast who grabbed him, all he saw in those pools of ichor was malice. Even snakes gave warning before they attacked. These wolves did not. Every second was tense, it took all his composure to keep his breath from quivering. Nothing was safe, not even crying. 

Something had changed in a moment, it must've because before he'd had much opportunity to wake, he was yanked from his cold prison and hung from the same jaws that had swept him up, and there it was again.

Icy. Crushing.

The air is filled with snarls and he cannot see the commotion beyond the fog at the side of his vision. One moment released, the next he is met with teeth again. He squeals and shakes each time.

He wished he had never left his bed that morning.

a mystery remained the origin of this boy now caught in murdering teeth.

poor nohkt.

a hand overplayed in earlier exploitation of crocodile's fatherly emotions was a gambit used once and discarded to ash.

the man who had put safiya's eye out held a boy aloft, silhouetted against an autumn sky over the beautiful desert.

the woman tore at him, and her teeth rent furrows of blood in his shoulder, but the crocodile would not be dissuaded; he bulled ferociously into the ribcage of the red bitch, intending to drive her back toward soto.

Anubis, admit this child into Your embrace.

his responsibility! it was to muat-riya, to eset, to all those who dwelt therein. had he not come to save this taken child?

honesty, caramelizing in a mouth that reached inexorably for soto through the fray, through the shouting and wailing; no. he had not come for any child. he had arrived for this one.

injected with the utter coldness of necessity, khusobek saw a choice and took it. killing soto would deal a far greater blow to his fellows than they could wreak against muat-riya. logic warred weakly with instinctual hatred, but only until his breath seemed to stir soto's pelt-hairs in a languid slowmotion state.

and killing him would be sweeter than any pain they might mount against a kingdom of red stone.

go, boy. go to the Land of Reeds. be reborn.

reborn in a way khusobek could not hope. Ammit would devour what was left of him in the end for this atrocity alone. khusobek traded life for life and life again, meaning to strike soto with so much force that he might well crush the priestess' neck. "kill her," he hissed to the maddened white swan, his only words before he shattered the air between them all.

there was but one way to fight those who put out the eyes of girls and throttled pups, and it was to capitulate no longer to any senet demands upon that broken table.

It was chaos. She had no idea they’d taken a captive or that there were two of them here to repay that. Sangre only had the brief satisfaction of leaving a mark on the intruding force before she was hammered backwards. Her breath expelled with a whoosh, so quickly she barely noticed the teeth at her ankle.

Oh fuck no. Now she was pissed.

They didn’t get to just walk in here like they owned the place. She didn’t know what their problem was, but if they had taken one of theirs, they pretty much deserved it after what they’d done to Soto. The kid wasn’t even hurt. And Sangre imagined he’d stay that way. Hurting a kid was as unimaginable in her world as flying.

So she didn’t even turn to look at them. Her focus was on the guy in front of her, mostly because she assumed Soto had her back.

Get the fuck out of here! She snarled hoarsely, lunging at him again and trying to drag him backwards. Her focus was honed to a point. Her mind had no room, sharpened by the powder, for distraction. Minor details… like that they’d apparently kidnapped an entire kid.

The fucker came for her! She did not see her boy, and mouthed to Khusobek to “get him!”—talking about the prick who went for her face, of course. Medusa herself reevaluated her own position and, seeing herself too close to harm, bounced away from redhead who she had hollered at just to regain her own footing. And away from Khusobek’s own jaws, to boot. 

Soto was distracted. Redhead was too. Medusa saw another arrive a beat too late as she herself dove for a more vulnerable part of Redhead—one that was maybe a little obvious, but hopefully because of all the chaos she wouldn’t have thought to defend it perfectly. 

Medusa, a bit dumbly, went for her throat. Not to kill, because she didn’t yet have a damn killers bone in her body, but to hold her down so number three could go and retrieve her boy. Over the snarls she hears his squeals, 

Get the fuck out of here? NOT WITHOUT MY BOY, YOU BITCH! ah, there it was, that claim. 

And she cannot control her own vice-like grip for the new anger that takes her. The sadness that consumes her as she looks into the dead gaze of the man that holds him. Too slow to save him. Too quick to attack to do what she was told. Could she kill? 

She didn’t know. But she wanted to. Now, she really, really wanted to—just as much as she wanted to die for this mistake, this arrogance. Maybe she would. But she’d make them fucking hurt. And if she didn’t take them down to the grave with her, if that was where she went, she sure as shit would make them fucking wish they were dead too.

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No one comes for the boy.

So he’s flung.
Hard, against the far marble wall.
Time's run out.
Ants answered for him: worthless.
His life had no value to them.
Wasn’t worth keeping alive.

Who’re the real monsters?
Brain of rot and still it fills with such existential questions.

Fuck ‘em.
They turned themselves into what they are now.
Prized cocks and ego over their own blood.
And that’s where they differed.

A call rings up.
For @Thiago.

His girl goes for red man’s throat.
Off with his head.

Soto strikes like a viper.
Niño like God throwing a tantrum.

The hound boulders into the red man.
Aiming to deliver ivory for his face.
Ripping fangs.
Maybe he’d blind father.
Like he blinded daughter.

The jaws that throttled him would see him discarded, off to join the fray. 

Nokht hit the marble, and his shrieks fell silent. Most he could do was gape at the open air, hoping some of it would find his airways. It'd be a long, choked moment before that would happen, and then he'd blackout. Least he was still alive. His paws twitched. Spasmed.

Pale belly was smeared with red, stained on the tips of wet fur. The hurt was everywhere and he felt himself become so, so heavy. His vision came back slowly, spinning the world, and for a moment he was deaf to it. 

For just a moment, he was not here, but instead nestled in Nazli's fur, where it was warm and quiet. His coyish ears were always sound sensitive, so when the ringing ceased, the world came back that much louder. 

He wasn't a fighter even before. So maybe it was biology that made him try to stand. If he could just run.. just hide.. nobody could hurt him anymore. He'd go away from the noise, the angry voices, the screaming and the splattering of blood across the sand. 

Whether it was body, or just his soul that escaped this place, he knew he had to try. Osiris couldn't protect his sisters alone. 

This one act of defiance, the first he'd ever made. Like ripping a band-aid off. Just get up. Do it in one. He couldn't feel the break in his leg, and when he finally peeled himself from his grave of marble and blood, he tried to run as hard as he could despite it. Flat ears. Don't look back.

sangre takes two hits for soto. enough to bowl a grown man over. but she’s still standing. 

he can tell — as his jaws click around the empty space that medusa occupied moments before — that khusobek is not here for palaver. 

he’s here for him. 

gods are kind. gods are good. he shares a long look with niño, who tossed that fucking child like a football. shit. he’s not playing. 

hell, neither is soto. 

dogged, he swings back for medusa. as much as he wants to see khusobek shredded, he knows it would be the captain’s worse insult to see blood and yet not taste it. to die before his hunger for revenge is ever satiated. an eternal sisyphean tease; so close and yet —

khusobek’s got el toro and sangre on him. three would just be mean. 

so, the waifling woman is all that’s left. 

she’s not getting away this time. as she lunges for throat soto is there; the barricade to her crashing sea. and his jaws clank shut with an alligator’s hefty lethality — aiming for the flat of her face where his fangs would pierce eyes like a bullet eased comfortably into the chamber’s place.  

and if he’s lucky, seize what’s left of her brain.

for once in her life, qiao ignored her good sense and followed the captain’s scent out into the sprawling plains of shale. what duties brought him to the midland? these idle thoughts dissipated as she drank in the scene before her. 

bedlam. absolute fucking bedlam. 

she was just in time to see a greasy man throw one of akashingo’s children hard against a slab of marble. for a moment, the child does not stir. 

dead? stunned? the smallest inkling of movement informs her he might still grasp life. 

it is not altruism or loyalty to the crown that bids qiao into a thief’s gallop. it is a sense of purpose. her purpose. 

while the wolves fought viciously, qiao ran for nocht. she dropped her head to wrap teeth around his sunken shoulders as he began to run. if she was true in her aim, she’d carry him far away from this scene of male stupidity and bloodlust.

spared the sickening sail of child through empty air, khusobek kept the resolve of straining teeth on soto.

the woman slammed into his side, the child-blinder his front. their teeth collided, lips splitting.

at the last, reptilian twist of broad shoulders turned his meat for her teeth again; in the tangle of their warring bodies, priestess chose and captain answered.

his jaws turn not on safiya's assailant, but on the woman, a smaller target and one less sinewy. teeth bled off his head, forehead scored, blood in hot running as a wound opened above one eye. but beyond her was soto. sacrificing an ear to the man's next bite, khusobek grabbed what piece of the red wolf's upper form he might, latching teeth as tightly as the quarry he sought; he would shake her to and fro, bearing what Amun would allow from the child-killer's continued attacks.

it would not be so bad to die here, so long as one of these three died with him, something to feed into the Devourer's teeth before his own soul was tasted.

Sangre, luckily or unluckily depending on your perspective, also missed Octavio’s treatment of the kid. Sobo had defended her back but she’d traded a smaller opponent for a larger one. And this guy wasn’t messing around. It didn’t matter how much blood she drew; he kept on coming.


Something about the woman’s words unsettled her. My boy. What the fuck was she talking about? She didn’t have time to focus on it, or on anything, because then her guy was in here fighting with her. Together they were totally going to teach this dude a lesson on messing with shit he shouldn’t be messing with.

He had been trying to get past her, so Sangre wasn’t expecting it when he twisted to grab her instead. She was shoving, trying to tear at his chest. He caught her by the back of the neck.

She twisted with a snarl and tried to tear herself free. Weirdly she felt no fear, only a rage that grew with every unsuccessful attempt.

The Gods put her through the wringer. When her jaws came in contact with absolutely-fucking-nothing in the end, Medusa watched her son sail in the air. But They were good, for about a minute—as she abandoned one quest for the next, she missed Soto’s vengeful fangs as she raced to him. But she heard him behind her—hopefully he fucking ate rocks and was stunned to stillness for the time it took her to—

QIAO! she banshee screamed. But, Medusa determined in that split second to… to trust her. That she had been seen at least. Or at least that other ears has heard.

And rather than abandon Khusobek, Medusa wheeled around and sprang both toward and away from Soto. She knew that to be snared by him was to be killed by him, and so any time his fangs came within biting distance she would rush away. She would certainly bleed, but she hoped to be quick enough to avoid being held in his grip for even a moment. He was an anaconda, and she a fucking guinea pig—she wouldn’t survive that shit. This might be a losing battle, but she would give Khusobek time to kill whoever he would kill. And Qiao time to run.

The desert breaks out in a choir.
Spitting, crying, snarling.

Sicario’s got his teeth on Sangre.
She isn’t scared.
Niño isn’t either.
He’s raving.

Power.
Weight.
The cartel had gravity on this soil.
The upperhand.

Soto snakes for the ghost.
Niño releasing the gurgle of an ear.
Red man’s scourging.
A violent whip.
Streaking blood.
Sangre’s blood.

The hound lights up.
Teeth, a yellowed flash against the deep blue sky.
Embedding with a gratifying crunch.

He clamps and tears his own jaws back and forth with sickening speed.
Aiming to shred red man away.

Probably last from Nokht as he gets whisked away with Qiao

Blood thrummed in his ears. His eyes were open but that didn't mean he took in his surroundings. Everything was just a panicked blur.

One moment, he maintained the innocence of youth, the next, he was thrust into horrors he struggled to understand. Nobody had spoken to him about death. Nobody had told him how badly the world could hurt you. He never would've gone outside. 

And why would they have? Is it not the responsibility of the adults to allow children their innocence? He was too young for any of this.

Mom.

He thought of Nazli.

A true irony, given that his real mother was here, fighting, risking her life for a boy who knew nothing of their connection. And what would she get from it? Her son's terrified gaze as he was swept up again. God his neck hurt. But it was like a bug bite in the face of everything.

If those monsters took him again, then this was it. He thrashed all he could with his fading strength, it was his first response, any jaws that grasped him now brought nothing but terror.

The fight in him would all but fade as they ran, and then it was lights out.

bedlam reigns.

he is late to the bloodbath, falling behind but he can feel the seething hunger of the devourer of souls beneath the earth like a heartbeat. he can feel sekhmet's presence in the fray of teeth and claws. the captain. medusa. another whisking the boy to safety.

he takes it in like half-second snapshots, processing as quickly as he could even as he lunges for one of the wolves that had dared to hurt any of the pharaoh's subjects.

it didn't matter which one of muat-riya's enemies he attacked.

he didn't care.

he only wanted to enact upon sekhmet's fury and feed the unyielding hunger of the soul devourer.

much goes wrong, in a matter of mere seconds. 

again the waifling dances out of his reach. she’s too nimble. he’s too hurt from before. she is entertaining a game soto’s not interested in playing. 

she won’t commit. she’s a deliberate distraction. he scans her limbs and face and decides she is not a threat. 

he does not have the energy — or interest — to pursue her further. his body is half a tank of gas; no use burning fuel to chase incendiary targets.

he turns to the tangled fray of red and black and grey. sangre’s getting mauled. there’s no hope of him fitting between those flying teeth. he hopes niño has a handle on this.

just out of their chaotic orbit he sees the priestess grab the child. again, he reads: no threat. 

two against one. bad odds for the captain. khusobek and he both carry earlier wounds to battle. it would take little for sangre and grasoso to subdue him; same goes for soto.

his movements must be deliberate. assured in their trajectory towards this battle’s final conclusion: him or khusobek dead.

preferably khusobek, if soto’s opinion counts for anything.

another enters and soto aims his sights upon him. he must not be allowed to unbalance the crashing wave of sangre and niño against their victim. 

a male, monochromatic and in his prime. soto barely has time to register the soft green of his gaze before his limbs fire on their own like buckshot, cleaving teeth honing right for the front of this man’s unsullied face.

that he had grabbed her around the back of the neck made everything that followed more bearable for khusobek, which was to say that the captain of the guard made quick peace with death upon recognizing that his hold could keep true even after.

agony blossomed in every facet of his figure and his limbs trembled with it. but for every lash of the demon's quick head, his own jaws closed more and more tightly around the red wolf.

she twisted harshly in his teeth, tearing one lip, but still he held. even as skin began to lift from muscle and muscle from bone, the crocodile held.

welterings of crimson poured along shoulders, mouth, shoulder; he shut his eyes. a violent weakness threatened the stability of four legs but he clenched tighter, tighter, tighter; he descended harshly on top of the woman, throwing his weight forward to pin her beneath him even as he sought to bite through her very spine, head sawing each time the man latched to his own body did the same.

once before he had heard how flesh ripped from bone. now it was in him, it was in all of him, and the fight against his own screaming as juddering wet muscle lay exposed to sun and teeth — only the mouthful of enemy occupying his jaws stopped that strangled sound from becoming more.

haze; misted; hatshepsuun's beautiful face rising in hallucination. how odd. even as the dog's-head of death began to take form in shadow, khusobek saw how hatshepsuun remained a jewel: brilliant but with no warmth.

no hope of warmth now. coldness ate slowly at his forepaws first.

dimly khusobek registered meseba, and in a moment of last renewal, he snarled a cough of mocking laughter into the blood-hue of the other's nape.

Sekhmet! Mistress of Dread! receive my blood!

pp w/ permission

There a chariot of black and gold leapt from the sky, striding as Atum. Body of the living spirit, begat with his fang, encircling the troops of the two palaces. Pharaoh, watching the rear of her victorious army; Semer-wati enacting the obsidian sword-arm of his wife.

She, kept in safe mount upon a hill while the smell of war filled both their heads with the shrieking fray. Their Gods were beseeched, and so the Gods came.

Like water passing over a lake of fire Rashepses moved to inundate the enemy of their deployed units.  Cold iron and sputtering blood revolved beneath his eyes, but his aim was true.

The king dove, all weight thrown against the slithering man who jawed the captain. The throat gargled and turned and grew taut, straining beneath the grope of teeth. Veins bulged under asphyxiation. 

“Finish the job! Finish it thoroughly!” Came the order from the Commander of Pharaoh’s army, spitting blood only to round his fury once more on the enemy, pulling him down and into the pitted grounds.

the shriek, the child—safe, she thought, in Qiao’s clutching jaws. her eyes turned to the enemy, and anger overtook fear as Rashepses dragged this damned figure toward her. all others were then engaged and occupied, and Toula snarled only to the dead-eyed man brought forth to his deliverer, Ammit awaits, 
before she struck, and struck true—the act she thought would be so difficult to do too terribly easy as she thought of Safiya, as she thought of the boy limp in the mouth of the Hemet, as she thought of her daughters and her sons—
they were Gods, she and her husband, and today They delivered Justice.

That morning, he bid both his little @Taliba, @Ibrahim and @Aiman goodbye. He said it was the way of a warrior and a guard to the thrones. He said it was an honor. He promised to fight until he could be home. A bite to his promise, he said to look after one another if he did not. He said he loved them. He wished this was not their first experience of their fathers absence to battle. But they should know how much of a blessing it would be to die defending their home and people.

It is by his brothers side when he goes to war and in the screech of flying blood. Rashepses is fuel. 

Meseba is not alone when the kingsguards teeth barrel towards the spine of the escaped prisoner.