[center][color=6ecff6][h2]Ixhun[/h2][/color][/center][hr]
Cuauhtl had been surprised by Ocotopec as it now stood. Its walls had been expanded, raised some six meters higher than the last time he had laid eyes on them. Large towers stood silent vigil, evenly distributed along the walls, far enough apart for two hundred men to fight back the Easterners from between them. The gatehouse, a modest thing last he had stepped through it, was now a massive edifice of beauty and war at once. Two towers stood to either side of it, and the gate itself towered over them as they approached. Bas-relief images of the  Five Suns began at the bottom of the gate, culminating in the Fifth Sun in all his splendor at the top of the gate itself, a heart clutched at its bosom.

They had arrived just as the sun began to rise and the gates were opening for the people of Ocotopec. They streamed out in their hundreds as they made their way to the fields and hunting grounds that surrounded and sustained the great walled city.

Cuauhtl noticed with unease that his strange companion and himself were the only souls moving to enter the city. The people parted in their masses to let them through, the avoidance of their gaze and the lack of greetings turned his attention to his new found acquaintance. He gasped at what he saw. 

She gazed all around, her eyes soaking in all that stood before her. Every face that she passed, every newly dyed piece of clothing, the gate house bas-reliefs and the decorative golden statues atop the gate towers. He brought a hand to her forearm without thought, wrapping her from behind and speaking in a low voice as they walked toward the city entrance.

“Keep your eyes straight, your gaze steady. We do not look upon others this way, they will know you are different, not one of us,” he motioned to her steps, his hand still wrapped tight around her forearm as he did, “you will be seen.” 

The strange girl nodded as he spoke, and he felt himself breathe a sigh of relief as she steadied her gaze far ahead and began to match his easy pace.

Then he felt the cold terror run through him as the stranger's hand clasped his own firmly.

“Do not touch me again, ever.” She stated calmly in her accent so much like poetry. But he could not appreciate the sound of her voice, for the inherent threat in her statement seeped into his mind as though it had been screamed at him from within his own head.

He tore his hand away, his palms already sweaty as he nodded sheepishly to the stranger. “Of course, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have time to linger on the surety with which he knew she would end his life over such an infraction again as one of  guards of the great city of Ocotopec approached. 

The guard held a hand out as he walked.

“You two, stop there!” he called from behind the ornately carved wooden mask of a Jagr, “[i]ihiyohuia[/i],” he began in greeting, “but I do not know your faces, and I know [i]everyones[/i] faces in my city.”

Cuauhtl felt his stomach jump into his throat as the guard stopped them, “How did you dawn?” He responded as confidently as he could muster, “And you are not mistaken, we are not of Ocotopec, of your great city,” he offered a bow as he spoke, motioning for the strange girl to follow suit.

He felt relief as he noticed her hair dangling low as she bowed with him, and he spoke as he rose, “We come from Apaxco, and though we wish not to bother you, we bring terrible news.”

He felt his confidence wavering as he spoke. The other guards began to encircle the duo, their macuahuitl clutched loosely in their hands.

“Apaxco, what news do you bring young one, why not your runners or your priests?”

Cuauhtl could feel the suspicion in the guards’ words, and he saw it clearly in the way they closed their circle as he spoke. Sweat began to run down his face and he felt as though he couldn’t quite breathe.

“We must be permitted to speak to the high priest, the matter is beyond your station, I apologize.”

The guard with Jagr mask laughed, a humorless thing as he brought the serrated weapon in his hand up to be used

“Is it beyond my station? I must let two jungle trash within my city? Messengers from Apaxco with no messenger bird to herald your arrival? I must take your word for this?” he exclaimed as he pointed the tip of his club between the two of them.

“I have not dawned well this day,” the Jagr guard concluded as he brought his macuahuitl up to strike.

Cuauhtl screamed, not in terror as when his city had died around him, but in anguish as the Jagr guard slumped to the ground before his eyes. He registered the gaping hole in his chest, and the heart in the girl's hand vibrating in its death throes as the stranger smiled with too white teeth.

“Please!” He yelled, “No more!” He pleaded as his legs gave out beneath him. He crumpled to the ground in a heap as another of the gate retinue collapsed, bisected down the middle by the Jagr guards macuahuitl.

He felt the warmth of blood flowing around his hands as he scrabbled uselessly at the cobblestones of the road.

“Apaxco has fallen!” He yelled as loud as he could as another guard lost his arms to a wild swipe of the stolen weapon.

The other guards, not so lost in the melee before them as to miss these words, stopped short in their swings and lunges, quickly retreating from the strange girl as they collected themselves at the unexpected news.

The girl screamed and growled like a wild animal. Gnashing teeth and darting gaze harassed the guards as they pulled away from her. The obsidian teeth of the macuahuitl flashed in the light as she lashed out at random with excited eyes.

“Speak child, do not make us kill her!” A guard ordered, the confidence of the late Jagr guard gone as his eyes flashed to his armless comrade shaking feverishly on the cobblestones in a pool of his own blood.

“The Easterners took us, six Suns ago!” He motioned to the girl, now stood stock still with the bloodied club at her side, “she and I are all that escaped! We must speak with the priesthood!”

The guards exchanged uneasy looks behind their intricate masks, weighing the worth of this folly Cuahtl imagined, before motioning to the girl, “Drop it, and we will take you both.”

Cuauhtl didn’t need to look at the girl to see if she’d followed the command as he heard the club clatter to the wet stones.[/hr]