Rough rough rough

Brittanie Jones
Caught in Between

Swirls of red coiled delicately over smooth, nutmeg contours. The round nub of a fingertip daubed carefully into a warm earthen vessel. The man’s finger gathered the metallic substance into the grooves and crevices of that primitive brush, and then spread the maize and blood mixture in channels of power onto the mask of the man's face.

A man he was, in that moment, but soon he would be so much more. Each hot line he painted was a pledge, curling into the promise of true power that was soon to invade his tawny skin. His red-rimmed eyes shot to the polished gold platter, lips parting at the sight of his reflection. He couldn’t look at his own husk anymore. Nostrils flared, he raised his hands to a pale line of sun, which pierced the heart of the small room. The heat of it set his skin ablaze, and he rose with trembling limbs to stand in the burning beam.

A dish clattered to the floor behind him, a wet splat and indignant croak echoing through the stone interior. Lazily the man turned to snatch up the toad, idle fingertips stroking over its bumpy back as he placed it back in it's ornate wooden box.
He rearranged the spilled pulque glass, and wiped droplets of the fermented cactus juice on the bare leg beneath his jaguar-skin loincloth. The milky white liquid puddled on the grey basalt floor, but it was too late for him to tidy that.

The man felt the night coming into him, the jaguar crawling underneath his skin and roaring out of his mouth. Fur itched inside of him, purred along his throat, and stretched against the confines of his humanity. His tongue felt wider, rougher, as he licked the pungent meal of people out of the corners of his mouth.

He fell to his knees, hands flexing into claws. They were scythes, ready to fell the stalks of his waiting subjects below. The last orange rays of sun struck him squarely in his caramel-yellow eyes, eliciting a deep rumble from his throat. A sharp jerk of his head preceded the sinuous arch of his spine, and he swallowed up the amber spill. The hot light coated his throat like honey, warming his intestines as intensely as the pulque had.

As his mouth closed, the world dropped into darkness, the last receding drops of light from the sky swallowed up in the dark throat of the Underworld.

The jaguar slunk to the lip of the great tower, wide wild yellow eyes glaring out over the people amassed below. Like so many ants, they held their bundles of sacrifice above their heads, reaching for him, imploring him. His wildcat lips parted, pouring forth the fires of chaos from the depths of him, so that it spilled down the impossibly tiny steps in rivulets of magma.

Those slit eyes watched the flow of rich heat down the pyramid steps, his gaze predatory and intense. He rushed down the side of the man-made mountain with the fall of lava, a dark shadow conquering the long yards between he and the murmuring crowd below.

The masses parted like a theater curtain before him, thousands of wide black eyes reflecting his tawny skin, his taunt fingers, and his wild red-rimmed stare. The smell of their fear tickled his broad nose, and it fueled his hunger for them, his ache to clench his teeth around humanity’s palpating jugular.

As the jaguar paused, a rippling wave in the crowd pushed forward a young warrior. His hands were bound before him, and his ankles were hobbled. He fell to his knees under the scrutiny of the divine, helpless before the judgment of all that was raw and untamed. The warrior lifted his head, eyes full of pride as he faced the jaguar, but the pride faded fast before the face of true power. Cold sweat replaced the chill of arrogance on the victim's skin. He knew now that the jaguar would drag him into the Underworld, he would go the way of the sun in the night.

"No."

Another shiver trembled through the heart of the crowd, and the air was filled with the soft startled sounds. A channel parted, and through the sea of faces shone one woman, translucent and shining as though the moon made its home inside her skin. Her eyes were perfect almonds, set on her face in a near mirror of the jaguar lord’s own features. Her perfectly pouted feline lips held a hint of a smile at the corner, as all cats displayed no matter how serious their mood. A white woven loincloth was all she wore, but it was by no means any less lovely than she. It was so long that it trailed behind her in a white tail, cascading over the ground as though roughness had no affect on the path it traveled. Tiny figures danced along it, embroidered white on white, but glowing so brilliantly that the details could be seen from some distance.

She carried a bright shield, square, and covered with feathers. On the center gazed the blank goggled-eyed face of the storm god, Tlaloc, his features accusatory in the moon-woman's pale light.

The jaguar was frozen in the glow of her, his caramel eyes locked on her steely grays. The sun inside his belly grew hot, lighting him up, making his body writhe in a strange dance of pain and excitement all balled into one fiery feeling. His back arched towards the sky, a low hiss rolling out from under his fangs and floating across the crowd.

The young warrior shivered as the sound touched his skin, he knew he would feel just that his as those twin daggers pierced his flesh.

The woman's slow procession did not halt at the edge of the clearing of people. She slid forward into the space claimed for the jaguar’s performance with the liquid grace of a rising star, and slipped between he and the young warrior.

"You will not have him." Her voice was the sound of the jungle, the whispering thrum of power and life that ran deep down through the very veins of the earth. It was the sound that lifted the trees up to the heavens, the sound of bird’s wings cutting through the sky and monkey’s palms sliding against rough bark.

The sound of her voice through the air, cut the ropes from the young warrior’s hands, and her words were so sharp that they sliced the skin of every warm blooded mortal in the crowd, taking sacrifice from their presence, stealing their very breath and blood. The jaguar lord roared, vomiting forth more magma from the depths of the Underworld. Blinding light seeped from the jaguar queen’s skin, so brilliant that it enveloped the young warrior and the otherworldly pair in its searing glow.

A noise filled the air like a forest full of trees suddenly splitting into slivers, all the way down to their roots. It was deafening, dropping most of the citizens of the city to their knees. They wailed, crying for mercy as their square, hardworking hands cupped their ears.

When the echoing void of pain finally dissipated, the two divine figures had vanished. Trailing wisps of white and black smoke coiled around the remaining figure, affectionately rubbing against his skin like the twin cats they had dissolved from. No longer was the young warrior naked and afraid in this land of strangers. He stood tall before them, bearing the weight of a hundred pounds of finely carved jade celts, the weight of thousands of jade beads wrapped around him. So spectacularly adorned was he that all the voices of the city called out to him, praised him as their Jaguar King. He raised the shield of Teotihuacan before him, rattling the beads as he shook in the power of the moment. As he raised the face of Tlaloc to the night sky, it split open, crowning him in wet, fertile drops of water. His dynasty had been placed by heaven, earth, and the underworld. None could deny him.