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. but in khusobek’s hands things have changed, and he’s ready to show that man his fears were true, and then some.

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. 

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.