Suku's head rested heavily on Awilix's thigh, long body almost coiled at her side and paws tucked in under his body. Awilix's hand shuffled over his fur with increasing uncertainty, fingers curling weakly as they moved from head to neck and back again but twitching every so often. "Be a good boy, okay?" Suku heard Awilix say. "Suku's a good boy. Such a good boy."
When Suku raised his head to softly butt his human companion in the side, Awilix's hand slid off and hit the muddy grass with a wet slap. Anxious to be pet again, Suku nudged her arm, and when that failed to get a reaction, he crawled up closer to the still body next to him until half of his body was all but resting atop Awilix's. Half hearted purrs and head butts did nothing to wake the goddess, and finally the jaguar rested his head just under her chin and let his eyes close as if to go to sleep. The occasional perk of his ears every time a branch snapped under the heavy rains was all that betrayed him.
He was tired too, but he would stay awake for the both of them.
"I know your heart must be breaking right now," someone was patiently telling Suku, "but we can't stay here. We've already tried bringing her back, she just...won't. I'm sorry, Suku."
"Why are you even bothering, Ah Puch. Let's go."
"Someone needs to try." The corpse god finally got to his feet with a raspy sigh. He looked on pitifully at the jaguar, who was still standing over Awilix's body that was still awkwardly sitting propped up against a tree. Suku's ears were pressed back and his mouth was open, lips drawn and exposing teeth. No one was going to be able to retrieve Awilix's body for a proper burial without paying a little blood for it, even if they had had the desire to do so. It wasn't worth the trouble.
"Going to just stand there or are we getting a move on?" Hun Batz asked impatiently after tossing his staff up and catching it several times. "For all we know, the thing's too dumb to understand us anymore."
"Shh, that's enough," Ah Puch urged, but he gave in and turned away to follow after the monkey god. For a second, anyway: he hesitated and threw another look back over his shoulder.
"Well, you can be damn well sure that the thing isn't going - "
"Suku."
" - fine, Suku isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Dumb beast or not, it's probably spiritually bound here for the rest of its life. We have things to do right now, you can come back here later to talk with it. Assuming there's still enough of Suku to reason with. Besides, you know the body won't rot. Too much god in it for too long, even if the spirit's long gone. The meatsuit will still be here for you to collect later. Maybe."
For all the monkey's crudeness, he was right. Awilix had given up her spirit to send them forward with hope. Ah Puch would be damned if he'd let that sacrifice be in vain, even if a certain beloved jaguar companion got left behind. "We'll be back," he promised Suku, whose mouth was still open in a fearless snarl at the god of decay. "Stay...stay this way as long as you can, I suppose. I'll see about bringing her back." And then they disappeared, leaving body and jaguar behind to soak in the pouring rain.
The next seven days and nights rolled by in a misty haze, all running together in a muddy stream thanks to the persistent rain. Suku caught prey once in a while, but limited by how far he dared to leave Awilix's body behind, opportunities were only becoming more scarce. He brought some morsels to her every once in a while in futile hopes that she would respond, but on the eighth day, Suku finally wandered out to find whatever foolish prey might still be around in this part of the forest. There was a gnawing urge inside him that he had never really felt until now, an urge to find food, shelter, a water source, but Suku didn't dwell on the thought for too long. He just did as he needed to, finding shelter in trees instead of sleeping on the ground, traveling as far and as wide as he needed to to find prey and water, marking his territory with deep gouges in tree trunks as he went along.
He retreated back deeper into the forest when he began hearing sounds of some kind of animal conflict in the distance one day. It took a while to find a place that pleased him, but find it he did.He stalked around familiar trees and noted with satisfaction that his scent had passed through here before, and he didn't recall being challenged for his claim over it. He could make this his new haunt since the easternmost boundary of his territory seemed like it would be encroached on soon. It wasn't much for prey availability, but it would do. There was fresh meat here too, downed by another beast no doubt, but left untouched for reasons that Suku didn't bother dwelling on. It was sustenance. Rejecting the indignity of scavenging was a luxury that a hungry jaguar could not afford to take.
"Oh, nine hells," Ah Puch cursed when he came upon the sight of a jaguar gnawing on a bird carcass. "Suku." The creature disappeared like a phantom at the sound of his voice, reappearing high in a tree and peering down with yellow, feral eyes. "You..." Ah Puch sighed, and then picked his way over to the sizable pile of splintered bones at the base of the tree Suku was hiding in. He stared down at them, numbly noting the markings where sharp teeth had dug into the bones. "You've forgotten everything already."
His only answer was an unblinking, yellow stare glowing between the foliage.
"We took too long..."
"Ah Puch, it's been weeks, how are we supposed to remember where she - oh." Hun Batz came to a stop next to his fellow god and surveyed the scene before them with thinly veiled pity and disgust. "I knew it. I knew this would happen - "
"That's enough," Ah Puch snapped, but the sound of light footsteps over grass and leaves behind them made both gods turn around.
"Well, well. Look who's here. Man of the hour, hero and savior. Didn't think you'd follow us all the way out here." Hun Batz leaned on his staff and gave the newcomer a distasteful once-over, looking as if he had just swallowed mud.
"You were taking too long. I tracked you until a little ways back and then followed the sound of your voices as you combed the forest. We need to head back," the man said, but even as he spoke, he looked up at the tree branches overhead and fell silent when he locked eyes with the jaguar.
Ah Puch allowed him a few seconds of peace, and then sardonically, voice dipped liberally in cyanide: "You know him, Xbalanque?"
The man didn't answer. Not yet, at least. His eyes flickered down to mull over the scattered bones on the ground before darting back up again to search out the shadowy shape of the jaguar, but it had long disappeared. There hadn't even been a rustle of leaves to whisper of its escape. "Once," Xbalanque finally said. "I suppose I did. Let's go."
They left.
