Questions

The grotto was a pocket of soft light and gentle sound, a secret world tucked away from the rest of the jungle. Swarms of fireflies drifted through the air, their lazy pulses of gold and green painting shifting patterns on the damp rock walls. Clusters of bioluminescent moss cast a soft luminescence, turning the small space into an intimate, magical chamber. The gentle trickle of a small waterfall splashing into a clear pool at the far end of the grotto was a constant, soothing murmur.

Etalcaxi lay on a bed of thick, soft grass, his body sated and relaxed, his mind adrift. Ixtic lay beside him, propped up on one elbow, gently tracing the intricate lines of muscle on his bicep with a single fingertip. Her touch was light as a feather, yet it sent a cascade of pleasant shivers through him. He watched her, his expression one of bone-deep satisfaction, mixed with a growing, nagging curiosity. The warrior in him, having been thoroughly conquered and then sated, was beginning to re-emerge, not with aggression, but with a need to understand, to categorize, to solve the beautiful, intriguing puzzle that was Ixtic.

"You have shown me much of this jungle," he began, his voice a low, contented rumble. "But nothing of your people. Do you have a father? A great chieftain who would demand a bride-price for his daughter?" He felt a flicker of his old, cocky grin return. "Brothers who would want to test my skill?"

Ixtic smiled, a genuinely amused expression lighting up her face. The concepts he presented were like strange, colorful pebbles he was offering her, fascinating in their oddness. She considered his words, translating them into her own reality.

"My mother is the earth beneath us," she said, her voice soft and matter-of-fact. She patted the grassy ground beside them. "She has a loud voice when she is angry, but her anger passes quickly." She looked up at the stone ceiling of the grotto. "My father I did not know. The great wind laid him down before I sprung from my mother." She then gently took Etalcaxi's hand and placed it on the smooth, cool bark of a large mahogany tree that grew beside them, its roots part of the grotto itself. "And my siblings are countless," she whispered, her green eyes full of a strange, ancient affection. "And very, very quiet. They are always watching."

Etalcaxi laughed, a warm, easy sound. The tension and fear were gone, replaced by a comfortable fascination. He assumed, naturally, that she was speaking in poetic metaphors, in the flowery language of a people who lived in deep communion with nature.

"A family of poets, then," he said, squeezing her hand. "I like that." He shifted, propping himself up on an elbow to face her more directly. "But where is your tribe's village? We have walked for days, and I have seen no city, no camp, no huts. A people as powerful as yours must have a great settlement."

She looked at him with genuine confusion, her brow furrowed slightly as she tried to comprehend the question. The word 'village' seemed foreign to her, a shape that did not fit into her world. "Village?" she repeated, testing the word on her tongue. "Why would I need a village? This grotto is a room for talking and playing." She gestured vaguely in the direction from which they had come. "The cenote is a bathing pool. The Yollotl-Cuahuitl is where I sleep when the sun is bright." Her gaze swept around the glowing grotto, encompassing the trees and stones beyond. "This entire jungle is my home. It is all I need."

Etalcaxi processed this new information, his mind working diligently to fit the strange, beautiful answers into a logical framework. He felt a thrill of discovery, of solving a difficult puzzle.

No village, he thought, his internal voice full of excitement. Her family is the earth and the trees. She sleeps at the foot of that great ceiba. She sees the entire jungle as her home. The pieces clicked together, forming a picture that was strange, but made a certain kind of sense. They are a nature-worshipping people. Of course. A tribe of guardians, so ancient and isolated from the great nations that they no longer see a distinction between themselves and the jungle itself. They are mystics. It makes perfect sense.

He spoke his conclusion aloud, his voice full of the confident satisfaction of a man who has unraveled a complex mystery. "I understand," he said, nodding sagely. "Your people are not builders of stone cities like my own. You are guardians of this sacred wood. A holy trust, passed down through generations. The Itzotec have priests who dedicate their entire lives to a single temple, never leaving its sacred walls. Your tribe does the same, but your temple is this jungle."

Ixtic neither confirmed nor denied his theory. She just watched him, that same mysterious, unreadable smile on her face, amused by the intricate little structures he built in his mind. Then, she asked a question that came from a completely different world, from a perspective he could not begin to fathom.

"You speak so much of 'people'," she said, her voice soft and curious. "Tell me what it feels like. When one of your leaves turns brown and falls in the dry season?" She tilted her head. "When a careless animal strips away your bark, does it hurt? When your roots stretch for water and find only dry sand, is it a great sadness?"

He stared at her, completely baffled. The conversation had taken a sudden, bizarre turn. "Leaves? Bark?" he asked, a confused laugh escaping him. "Ixtic, you speak in riddles again. I am a man, not a tree."

The playful, mysterious light in her eyes vanished. It was extinguished in an instant, replaced by something ancient, serious, and as hard as granite. Her voice, when she spoke again, was cold, each word a sharp chip of stone. "When an axe bites deep into one of my brothers..." She took his hand, her grip surprisingly strong. She pressed his palm firmly against her own flat, warm stomach. "...I feel it here."

For a single, startling heartbeat, Etalcaxi felt it too. It was not a thought or an idea. It was a pure, physical sensation that erupted deep in his own gut. A sudden, sharp, phantom ache. A deep, resonant pain of ancient wood being split apart by cold stone blade. The feeling of living fibers tearing, of sap bleeding, of a life centuries old being violated. The sensation was utterly real, completely foreign, and it had nothing to do with flesh and blood. It was the pain of the land itself.

He pulled his hand back as if he had been burned, his eyes wide with shock, a gasp catching in his throat. The feeling vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving only a cold, trembling echo behind.

For a moment, in that shared, shocking pain, he saw a glimpse of the vast, non-human truth of her. He saw past the beautiful face, the sensual body, the playful demeanor. He saw a being connected to every root and leaf, a spirit whose body was the entire forest. The beautiful, eccentric mystic from his convenient theory dissolved, replaced by a terrifying, exhilarating, and incomprehensible reality. He looked at her, at the hardness in her eyes, a dozen new, terrifying questions on his lips. What are you?

Before he could ask, before he could give voice to the vertigo spinning in his mind, she leaned in and captured his mouth in a deep, distracting kiss. It was not a kiss of passion like before, but one of command, of deliberate misdirection. When she pulled away, her playful, mischievous demeanor had returned, the ancient hardness banished from her eyes as if it had never been there.

"Too many questions," she whispered against his lips, her warm breath chasing away the phantom chill. "The warrior thinks too much. It is time for less thinking."

He surrendered to the kiss, his own hands coming up to grip her waist, pulling her on top of his body. He actively pushed the unsettling memory of the phantom pain away, shoved the chilling implications of her words into a dark corner of his mind. It was far easier, far more pleasant, to believe she was a beautiful, eccentric mystic from a strange human tribe. He embraced the simpler, more convenient explanation, drowning his flicker of true insight in a fresh, welcome wave of passion as their bodies pressed together on the soft, living grass.