Starglow Basin trastornado

all tagged welcome, some slight pp to set scene <3

they're driven tirelessly across the red sands. the trio might have been comical, some abstract commentary out of steinbeck's la perla -- were it not for the fact two of them were nearly bleeding to fucking death.

soto routs them into an ancient mouth of volcanic stone and shale where slate figureheads prop up against the sun-baked earth like gravestones. it's bare digs, but nothing here holds onto a scent. the ground's too open -- and too hard -- for blood or pawprints to linger under the zealous eye of the sun.

it's a proper hideout if soto's even seen one.

@Sangre's falling to pieces. soto marshaled the priestess to her cot first and watched like a hawk as she worked, muttering curses and all manner of vile statements under her tongue. soto knows enough to observe she's not poisoning her patients -- but he doesn't trust her either. 

that's why he took half her fucking leg.

he turns his attention @Nokht, wrapping the boy's fractured limb with the strange strips of vegetation the priestess told him to collect. his leg is like sangre's back - in absolute pieces. it might set, it might not. truthfully it's the least of soto's problems.

problem number one: where was juarez? thiago? carlos? it wasn't like any of them to disappear, and soto's left to face the grim prospect that they might not be returning.

there's an implicit understanding in the cartel surrounding unexplained absences and it goes something like this: enfrentar al jaguar. the literal translation approximates to face the jaguar but the natal tone reaches far deeper, broad strokes of linguistic poetry painting the picture of a hunted man surrounded by jungle greens, his stance square as he sees the languid predator in the thicket. hunted meets hunter; wolf meets jaguar.

the jaguar is death, and death is ever hungry for cartel supplicants.

that might make him the sole jefe; soto gropes about blindly in his mental cataloguing of everything that's happened, and decides its time to send word back home. mothership, we've landed. forces here more pugilistic than anticipated - slight casualties expected. requesting expedited reinforcements. 

but who would convey the message?

he winces as he slinks to the ground and keeps both the boy and the crone in his attention. he's exhausted; his cuts rimed with dust and filth. the scabrous wound on his neck has reopened and seeps vile liquid into the earth. soto cleans what he can, retrospectively examining every nuance of his and sangre's position.

he knows he's properly fucked.