Golden Glade illumination

red.

a powerful color. the preferred hue of the divine.

a protective color; binding blood and sanctuary alike.

she draws from her wrist a new garland and scythes her arm through the air.

splatters in the snow; a celestial body of patterns, dark round planets ringed in discs of merlot.

she tilts her head as she studies them, pushing forth the first bundle of spare herbs. it had not been easy finding them -- the personal significance of which lent her reading a profound challenge.

one lone planet of red orbiting away from its fellows. mictec, on her winter trial. three smaller bodies trailing, a comet of crimson in their arcing tails.

she chews on clove and draws three lines in the snow, then draws them again in descending order. in their center she places stems of sage and old mugwort.

above her the moon thins, but two nights from its new face.

tezcatlipoca be pleased.

an inevitable truth settles into jameson's chest like a stone cast into his heart.

he is lost.

has been lost for some time.

it had started with a visit to his soldier's family farm; helping the herding dogs patrol the perimeter. a couple of scrappy coyotes had tried to come for the sheep. and protective instincts had gone into hyperfocus. he gave chase and he killed the coyote he could catch and then ... he kept going.

a war between the wild call in his blood of his father and the iron pull of duty of his mother.

and now, he knows not where is. a glade nestled betwixt soaring slopes that reminds him of home ... except these walls are nature made rock instead of the sharp tang of chainlinked, barbed fence that hummed with an energy that jameson had never truly understood but had known not to touch.

he stops to take a drink at a small puddle of snowmelt, giving a scratch at his collar. this is the longest he's worn it and once a mild but understood irritation it's become a safety blanket.

a sound draws his attention nearby and he moves in the thick foliage, not trying to be stealthy necessarily; whiskey gaze watching the woman as she appears to be drawing lines and placing herbs. their scents tickle his nose; unfamiliar.

what is she doing? the thought takes hold in his mind as he watches, brow furrowing.

there is one matter left to attend --

she lifts her gaze to a man, masked by black and sporting a fat wrap of hide around his throat that gleams with the same sinister tones seen on mictec's neck.

atozli stands, long muzzle twitching as she drinks in his scent.

friend? foe?

she waits, her claws clutching a branch of mugwort.

jameson is unsure of her. especially so, now that she has noticed him. she is clearly not a coyote like the ones he'd chased off and killed — which had gotten him tangled in this mess in the first place. his battle buddy had always came for him before but dread hangs heavy in jameson's chest as the days bled into nights that bled further into a week. two. and his battle-buddy hadn't came to chide him, grab his collar with his weird looking paws and load him back up into the bucket seat of his noisy old chevy truck.

but he meets her gaze, visibly scenting the air in return.

he shrugs out of the foliage — alert and sure to leave plenty of distance between them; but his body language is neutral. cautious, but not aggressive.

power in this one. it lurks in his gaze like caiman in blackwater. waiting.

if he is foe, he has made himself known first. atoztli considers this and sets aside the mugwort.

now comes the business of sanctifying this place.

she strides past, fur brushing just so along the man's corded frame.

they have a pond to see about a turtle. will he come?

his shoulders tense, a soldier painfully at attention as she draws nearer. but she brushes past, a barest, feather-light brush of her fur against him. confusion makes its home upon his facial features, head and gaze following her until he is forced to turn to watch her; to consider.

but the clock ticks quickly; a rapid countdown that leaves jameson without much time to weigh the pros and cons.

but his curiosity is a powerful thing and it bids him to follow; and so he does.

he tells himself it's because its what his battle-buddy would command him to do. to become the watcher. to learn what he could, while he could. jameson tells himself this but it feels more like an attempt to cover the fact that there is something wildly magnetic and enigmatic about her.

he's tense. confused. good. a man in such state is useful, clay drawn from the bank to mold in tezcatlipoca's favor.

her tail twitches, held out in the manner of a single hand waiting for its adjoining palm. come.

she weaves through tall reeds and listens. the sigh of the earth, the harsh crack of shifting ice. somewhere here is a turtle - or many - but it is only one that will be useful.

she places her head upon the ground and her gaze finds his as if to say follow; do as i do -- holding just long enough that there is a spark between them -- and breaking her gaze before he can see the fractured yellow within hers.

she moves again. not this mound of earth. not this swale of snow. the earth is cold and holds onto her secrets -- but somewhere here, a brumating creature holds the earth on the back of his great and painted shell.