Two Eyes Cenote where do you lay down the burden?

the early morning is overcast, but in the horizon dracarys can see the myriad of colors that sunrise cast across the sky, desperate to break thru the breaks in the thick grey clouds. the glimpses are brief, of the sky, of the tangerine orange sun, plump and 'round before the clouds move quick to obscure.

pale, frostbound gaze moves back to the cenotes. in his exploration, he'd found lived in dens and underground chambers full of things left behind. this territory has once housed a pack and though picked mostly clean — by enemies, by scavengers ... it mattered not — some trinkets and treasures remained.

worried bones bear rough teeth marks, the marrow long since suckled out. some dusty, abandoned furs. he carries the spoils out to the daylight to examine them further, far from being too proud to take and use things left behind.

a marauder had come to the cenote.

had soto any love for his neighbors he might have sprung upon the argos-gold hide of this man, wrung out his neck -- but all it takes for him to settle is recall his hours spent here in the underground prison.

coolness seeped into his blood; juarez and nino silent. soto picks his way silently towards the man who laid out his newfound treasures like scalpels on a surgical tray.

a cold humor glinting in his gaze, he kicks at a rock to make himself known.

the sound of a rock skittering across the rocky ground underfoot; purposeful. dracarys looks up from the berry stained, worried bones, head snapping up, hackles bristling with unease as his frostbound gaze locks in upon the one eyed stranger, bearing a pelage of black and burnished golds.
nostrils flare for a moment as he draws in the stranger's scent finding it unfamiliar. to be expected, seeing as he was just as unfamiliar to this place. as much as he'd been hoping to take some of the furs, he was not willing to fight over them — the abandoned goods were not worth the spill of his blood.
skoros gaomā? the northern language flows from his tongue with a natural ease. it is rude to stare. adds the siren prince, trying to decide what kind of man stands across the way.

not until the man stood straight did soto realize how tall he was; the brandishing fur a brilliant aftereffect that bolsters his height further.

no matter; the python does not wish to fight over these ruins. this place is cursed. he senses it in his bones. it is why he did not claim it for himself.

and those twin waters the mouth of some hellish landscape soto does not wish to transverse.

a pretty dialect not his own -- nor english -- first leaves the man's tongue. it's the closest approximation to the lyrical fluidity of his own language that soto has heard in this place.

but the words mean nothing.

he grunts, angling a nose towards the assorted furs. es malvado. sensing a barrier, soto repeats in the words safiya painstakingly taught him. no good.

the language barrier is a thick, near palpable thing between them; noted at the exchange of a language that dracarys does not know followed by two simple words in common.
no good.
it lingers indefinitely dracarys' mind, prowling like a caged animal as the siren prince tries to decipher it. unfortunately, without context there were numerous things that 'no good' could mean. 'no good' could mean that he didn't really understand dracarys, it could mean the furs that dracarys has grabbed. it could mean dracarys or the one-eyed stranger himself.
frostbound gaze assesses, mind working tirelessly to interpret as best he could, for naught in reality.
what is not good? presses dracarys wearily.

good news for dracarys, soto knows what what means.

thees place.. he answers, and then to supplement the answer motions around him.

did the man not feel it? the charge in the air, the way something hidden lurked out of view like a caiman in swamp-water.

es no good. bad. and then hiking up a leg and standing to his full height, soto breathes in the malevolence and exhales it, wondering if each breath darkens his heart. thees place have fantasmas. he thinks a moment longer and tacks on ghosts.

a skeptical gaze is cast 'round as the stranger mentions that this place is no good ... but it is just a place. if places could remembers the scars, the trauma of wolves that had once called it home ... dracarys could not say. could not claim to fully believe. it feels superstitious to the siren prince and he is largely skeptical of such things.

ghosts, dracarys repeats in a low rumble; not trusting enough to take his gaze off the stranger for any limit of time ... so he casts a glimpse at the items strewn about — his bounty — with a flick of his ear. i have yet to see any ghosts.

the blonde wolf looks around them, skeptic. soto's eye dances with knowing: this world is cursed, and the ghosts within it malevolent and unhappy. there are places that never recover, there are scars within the fabric of reality that never knit closed; it is here that all evil springs from, and it is here that time immemorial sanctifies these places as regions of blood and grief.

but soto is a superstitious wolf. he holds in the stranger in his gaze, thrilled by their direct eye contact. 

but they see you. he rejoins in a quiet growl, deciding this man has earned his peace here. if he is to raid the dead, who is soto to stop him? victors don't fret over the mass graves of their victims.

no, better to leave these ghosts behind. without another word, soto kicks at the rock he'd moved earlier and ranges down the cenote's empty halls.