A Bump in the Road. Chapter Fifteen.
A Bump in the Road
Chapter Fifteen
By Roofles
"Enough." Tezca snapped as I poked at his belly with my foot once more. His eye was twitching and he was evidently putting a great effort into not biting my foot off. "Your friend is fine. Spirits have no physical body. All I have done is sent him back to the spirit plane where he can recuperate. He. Will. Be. Fine." And with that he did snap his jaws at me leg as I poked once more just to make sure. Tezca growled. "So stop poking me!"
"Right, right." I backed up a bit before falling down onto my rear and shaking my head. "This whole place is fucked up." I covered my face with both hands. And then I began laughing. "When will this day come to an end." A turned over shelf behind me served as a good something to rest back against.
Tezca let me rest for a few moments before speaking. "We need to talk." The jaguar began.
"Oh no! Are you breaking up with me?" I laughed a dry hollow sound. Even without looking at him I knew the jungle cat was frowning. "You can't break up with me. Your my evil possessing spirit, you can't leave me."
"This is serious."
"So is your face." And the jaguar sighed a loud gruff sound as he shook his head.
"That is what I wish to talk with you about, Isaac." Tezca voice was strong, deep and held a strength to it. An almost overwhelming presence came from him like a giant before an mouse and it was the first time he ever said my name. If I cared at the moment I would've been afraid. His head bowed and those teal fire eyes closed. "You wish to return to your normal life. After all of this is said and done?"
"Yup." Was my flat ass reply I gave him.
"That is not the case. Or even a possibility." Tezca said taking a sledge hammer to my already thin hopes and dreams.
"Ouch. Could've sugar coated that a bit." I looked up at him. He was staring at me now. His ears folded back, his expression waved as he looked away towards the door again as if to make sure no one was going to come in. I knew otherwise.
"Yes. I am aware of my...bluntness at times." He turned back to face me. "This is the reality of your situation. You need to accept this. You do not belong to that world anymore."
"I know, I know." I waved him off. I wasn't a dumbass but it was nice...to pretend for a bit. Like trying to get over a death of a loved one. It felt the same.
"You are more scarred than the shaman," he meant Lewis, "told you. You have holes in your soul. Pieces missing even before I ripped others out..." He wavered again as I looked back at him. I was sure my eyes had large bags underneath them at this point not getting any sleep in the last day. "And the only way to keep you as you are now was to fill these missing holes. With my own soul."
I let that sink in a bit. Before shaking it off. "Fuck." I just muttered under my breath.
"Words cannot express my apologies fully. I do not wish to make excuses for my action. I was afraid, wounded and trapped within that medallion. For so long. So long in that black empty silence. The very thing that used to be a symbol of my power..." Tezca voice trailed off and even without being directly connected to him I could feel the anguish pouring from him. A deep scar that bled sorrow and pain.
"You were a wounded animal." I waved it off looking away. "It's not that big of a surprise. Like being thrown to hungry...tigers. Or something." I wonder if Varric knew what would happen once he gave that to me, that cursed medallion. He seemed to be unsure about the it himself. Where was that black feline at anyways? If they did...that to Barney what horror had befallen him?
Tezca didn't answer me and a full agonizingly long minute of silence rolled by.
"I do not ask for your forgiveness. Only for you to understand the situation that has befallen you. Fate is a cruel mistress as you mortals put it." Tezca lowered his head.
"Eh," I shrugged getting up and dusting my pants off. Tezca looked up a bit suspiciously as if I was about to jump across the room and face check him. "That was kind of obvious really. I mean sure it was nice to not think about it. Pretend otherwise. But it's not like I can do anything about it now. Was that all this was about? Dude, it's fine. Relax. Shit happens."
Tezca looked up at me before shaking his head and I swore he was chuckling. "Mortals are such strange creatures. You tell them they will die the next day and be fine about it. Then they freak out when the gas prices rise."
"Yup." I shrugged. "We're a bunch of retarded monkeys in the end of things."
Tezca muzzled open as if to say something else but stopped and looked away. "There was one other thing I wish to speak to you about." He redirected to something else making me wonder what he had originally tried to say.
"Yeah?" The cat moved then striding past me with strong powerful fluidity and blocked my path, sitting down once more, tail curling around him blocking my path to the main door.
"Your brother Marco." Tezca had cold eyes as he spoke and I couldn't read any emotion from him.
"What about him?" I asked, the suspicious one now.
"You should give up on him." The cat said coldly like ice cutting into my heart.
"Excuse me?" I nearly snapped glaring now.
"He is beyond saving." The jungle cat just said flatly.
"Yeah, no. Not going to happen. We came all this way and you want to throw in the towel?" I found I was standing fully upright now swiping an arm in front of me as I clenched my jaw.
Tezca looked over towards the back room. "The one you know as Barney was under a powerful enchantment." His eyes drifted back to me, narrowing.
"Yeah and so was sleeping beauty." I spat.
Tezca looked back at me, fully now. Reading my face, staring into my eyes and trying to look into my very soul. "Whoever is capable of doing something like that is out of your league. Possibly my own. Marco already has...issues. And combine that with-,"
I shook my head, cutting him off not wanting to hear anymore about it. "Marco is fucked up. We all are! He just needs a little...help." Damnit it's just like before with my family. Friends. Coworkers. Everyone told me to just abandon my brother, leave him to rot in the streets like some stray dog. I didn't think Tezca would be the same. Damnit all. I wasn't going to leave Marco! Not again...
"It is not a matter of his mortal self I worry for. The curse he has is...deep; dark and full of rage, hatred. Malice and spite." Tezca growled a bit as he spoke.
"And so are you." I said spitefully making the jaguar actual flinch back. I could feel my anger bubbling at its surface, annoyed, frustrated about all this. It...I always felt this way when things came around about my brother. I had to leave rooms more time than I was comfortable to make sure I didn't punch someone lights out.
We weren't even related. Me and Marco... My father slept with some neighbor, knocked her up and then just assumed my mother would take care of him as if it were her duty or job to do so. I never hated Marco for it. For everything that happened to our family afterward. How could I? He was just a product of our father's arrogant bastardness. We both had a troubled childhood because of it all. Mum hated Marco for it, feeling as if he were to blame for it all. I hated my dad for it. And in the end no one even tried to help us as things only escalated worse and worse. Neighbors ignoring us and everyone at school just looking the other way from the bruises and broken ribs. Then acting all surprised when things finally did happen. A bunch fuckers lying that they didn't have a clue we were in danger or anything...
Marco was the only one I had. And I was the only one he had during those days. During everything. Then we were split up and I...I didn't even try to find him. Trying to ignore, forget my past and just move on with my life. Moved away from it all and tried to forget, abandoning him then when he needed me most. So when he finally came back I just...
I found myself shaking my head. "He's my brother. No matter what he is now." I could feel my knuckles whitening as my fists clenched tighter and my arms shook.
"Isaac!" Tezca snapped his jaws growling making me jump. "This is not about Marco but the thing in him. It is a monster born of pure hatred. A true full blown curse." I was about to say something about him being the same but I was cut off sharply with another growl. "Why do you not think the shaman didn't remove it from Marco?"
"Well..." I fumbled giving away my doubts. It had been a question I had been trying to ignore. I was biased when it came to Marco and didn't think clearly.
"It is because that...thing has latched onto him so tightly that even in death it will haunt him."
"Aren't you the same as it though?" I said getting defensive once more.
"Essentially yes. And at the same time no. I am a child of the original spirit that first bore the Jaguar and created the Jaguar Knights you know of in history. They were blessed, and cursed, by the spirit of the wild becoming the first werejaguars. This spirit, my fore father, was one of the old ones who was revered as a god. And what happens to one seen as a god after their worshipers stop believing in them?"
I didn't have an answer to that. How could I?
"They die. Disappear and return to the netherever, the world of spirits." Tezca's voice darkened in a deep snarl and he bore his fangs, not at me but something else. "That thing... that has your brother is a curse and nothing more. Even when others stopped believing in the source it still was able to stay around. A spiteful thing, that monster has after man betrayed it."
Neverever? Old ones? He brought up more questions than he answered but seemed to have a clear reason as to why to hate Marco's furry friend. That or it was just another cat vs dog thing.
"Throughout the generations the cursed has lived on infecting one person after the other to continue its vengeance. And now it has taken a hold of your brother." Tezca stared at me with those teal fire eyes without blinking.
"Then why hasn't he gone on a bloody murder spree?" I glared back matching his gaze. I wavered and felt weak looking into those eyes as if afraid I'd slip and fall into them.
"Tell me. Where was your brother during these murders? Mutilated bodies with nothing but wolf prints left behind." I shuddered at that and clenched my fist tightly trying to stifle that rage inside. It wasn't him. It was those damn werecoyote things. It had to be. It had to...
"Shut up!" I ended up saying. Not my best moment. "He was with me during the last murder! He wouldn't do something like that." It hurt. Knowing that Tezca had used me, gone through my own memories to use against Marco. And the worst part was he was only speaking what I had feared. "He was at that stupid ring fighting to earn money so we could pay rent! That's why he was disappearing. That's it."
"You must be aware that there is a chance he is responsible." Tezca said coldly matching my gaze equally. I wavered and looked away once more. Damnit I couldn't even look him in the eye. I found myself biting my own lip until blood was drawn. Why was he doing this? Why now? Damnit!
"I do not know why the wolf spirit has attached itself so tightly to him." Tezca bowed his head, his voice softening. "Nor if he is guilty of those crime. I am only speaking what you have tried to deny. I need you to be aware of this." He frowned. "It is too risky to go looking for someone that could, at any second, lose himself and attack you."
"Like you have?" I shot back. I smiled seeing the reaction at it struck true. I was feeling rather vindictive towards this cat.
"That is...how I know how dangerous he is. I can relate." Tezca bowed his head looking at the ground. "I am not perfect. I have been weakened, trapped. Tortured and when I had a chance to get free. I did. No matter the cost." He looked up those eyes darkening. "I do not regret what I had to do to survive."
"Well maybe that's what Marco is doing! He's just trying to survive. That's all." I jumped onto that a really too quickly and I didn't follow it up with anything. Tezca noticed but had the common sense not to pick at it. He waited for me before doing anything. "Fine," I said wiping a hand over my face. I had been sweating. "Even so. I am still going to find him. When things come up we will deal with them. As they come up." Yup. That's me. The poetic one that could string words together into good, smart talk.
Tezca sat there. Looking at me. For far too long than I was comfortable with. "Very well." He nodded. "I will accompany you."
"You have too." I chuckled a bit spitefully once more. He wasn't the reason why I was angry. Stupid Marco. I was SO going to punch him in the face when I see him.
Tezca ignored my words as if knowing that I wasn't angry at him. "I will go with you into the belly of the beast. To find your cursed brother. Then what?"
"Then what, what?" I eyed him. Damn. I hate when he was smarter than me.
"You think we can just walk in their, find your idiot brother," I think he said that sensing my own feelings about Marco. "And then just skip out?" The corner of his lip tugged upwards and a part of me was glad to see him returning to that smarmy attitude that I had rubbed off on him.
"Well I was figuring we'd do the skipping after I punch Marco in his fat face." And with that I did get a toothy grin. I crouched down and offered my hand. "You coming or not?"
Tezca looked at my hand for a moment and then into my face. "Are you sure?"
"Shut up," I laughed and grabbed at his paw. I felt those strong powerful fingers clench around my hand, his palm could fit my whole hand in it. And like a jacket I swung him around and over my shoulder, sliding my other arm in and in a second the jaguar was back as a pelt and falling over my head.
It was convenient I won't lie. Looking like one of those Jaguar Knights. The crowd ignored me just seeing some other supernatural creature walking amongst the rest unaware of anything else. It was very handy to being able to walk around without "people" flinching away from me or just staring.
I roughly remember where Barney had taken me the first time around and jogged down the street. The shops were different than they had been before but a few blocks down there was the back alleyway and to my surprise a three headed dog was blocking the entrance.
The middle head had a large bandage wrapped around it's neck, trying to hide it in a three hole turtle neck sweater (each hole for a different head). I moved through the crowd, the jaguar pelt drifting behind me like some kind of cape, and came face to chest with the large three headed dog.
"Hey there." I waved. "Mind if I passed."
The dog looked at me all three sets of eyes widening and with a loud startled yelp, a sound belonging to a much smaller dog, jumped a good foot or two into the air and ran for it.
"You always make the best impressions." Tezca laughed and I just ignored him as I jogged after the canine.