A tip of the cup , all salute, to the possible ghost. "Carnal," a hint of sadness in it.

His eye looked at her, and saw it again. How tired she was. How done. Looked down at the drink. Ice cubes went click. Bad luck to leave a drink untended after a toast. Let out a push of breath. All lost to the currents.

Grabbed it up. "Para los muertos, y los vivos," he said. Knocked back the drink with a good long pull. Shook his head and led it back down. Felt it slosh and swirl. Mix in with all the other party favors he had gotten. Shots from old friends, and sips from his hunt for the drink of old Sinns. All mixed down in the cauldron of his gut.

Just a little more spin to everything. Just a little more smile. Helped feel less, anyway. About Sinns. About them. The sword. That's what this was all for. He had to remind himself. The sword.

"You..." He fiddled with his thumbs over the rim of the cup. "Want to da-"

Mira, mira... came a voice too sweet. A shoulder brushed against Garrod.

Too close. some part of him warned. Eye wide. Flit to Dani, the drink. His hand. Was caught by the pools of amber that looked over him. Could feel them trace his scars. Down the side of his face, across his neck. Settled on his eye. Garrod looked away. Pulled up his shirt and hid his missing eye.

Dancing was different. Dancing was a duel. The floor had its rules. He grew up on that floor. This. The bar. The man and his curls. He didn't like this. Didn't have fun here. Already too buzzed to move how he should.

It was a party, after all. Its own little cage of formalities and expectations. The dead were dead. The living lived.

"I don't gamble," he laughed through trembling smile. "I've the luck of a wet ghoul." he said through the clamour. Waved him away with his right, flared the collar of his shirt up with his left to cover his neck. Another nervous little laugh. "Emeraldo though," a polite nod. "Cute," no sweetness to it.
 
The red devil was circling Garrod like a cat that had seen a new mouse. And Garrod looked about as comfortable as a man asked to dance on broken glass.

“Ah, no juegas,” the man in red purred, voice low and playful, like the slow strum of a guitar string. He leaned in, the flicker of a lantern catching on his golden tooth and the crimson silk at his throat. His grin deepened, lazy and wicked.

“What is life if not one long throw of the dice?" philosophized Rey del Hueso, already refilling the empty glasses.

The man in red laughed low in his throat, that molten sound that turned heads nearby. He leaned back and picked up his dice. "I’m just curious what kind of man refuses a little luck when it rolls his way.” Smirking, he rolled them in his hand. Then, with a flourish worthy any duelist, he held the dice out between two fingers.

“Come now, mi valiente. One throw. If I win, you drink with me..."

“Oh, come on, Emeraldo,” Daniyah sighed. “Let the poor man show you a good time. Before he finds someone braver.” She hadn’t missed how close Garrod had come to asking her onto the dance floor. It would never happen, not in this life, and likely not the next either. The man in red seized the moment with a wide grin, nodding toward Daniyah.

“Listen to your friend, she understands the spirit of the night.”

She raised her glass.
 
Ah, no juegas, came the voice all warm rumble in his ear. Got closer. Pulled a grin out of the green eyed Cazadore. Puro filo real.

What is life if not one long throw of the dice?

"Un baile," Garrod flung out. All knife to the mark.

I'm just curious what kind of man refuses a little luck when it rolls his way... Dice all duelist's trick.

Proud creature that he was. He felt a spark strike up in his gut.

Oh, come on, Emeraldo... Before he finds someone braver.

Snatched up the dice. "Fine," he said tossed the dice up, caught, up, and caught. "You win, you buy me a drink" pointed out a round fat jug near the bottom shelf. "And I tell you a story," up the bones went. Clattered in his palm with a snatch.

"I win, Diablo Rojo," grinned all the wilder. Pointed to the top shelf. "I get a bottle of Anejo Emperadizo," all glittering and gilded. Picked up his topped off tumbler of silver. "And some fucking crab legs," swirled the drink. Eyed the devil with the red silk tie. "Trucha?" offered up a clink of the glass.
 
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He held the dice out for Garrod to take.

“Crab legs and a bottle?” he sucked his gold tooth, making the sound of a cicada.

“You misunderstand, perhaps. These are not ordinary bones. They don’t just decide what bottle you’ll drink or whose pockets grow heavier.” And in Garrod's hands lay the dice, thrumming softly like a heart. Each carved jade symbol shifted beneath his fingertips, symbols that remembered things that hadn’t yet happened. It crept along his palm, whispering promises. Power. The kind that could tip the scales of destiny with a single cast… and make the world pretend it was luck.

"If you win, you may ask the night to grant you a favor.” He clinked his glass against Garrod's.

"Dado de Sangre.." Rey del Hueso whispered as a warning.

“Ah, come now, viejo,” The man in red drawled, snapping his fingers so a spark leapt in the air. All harmless, playful. “Always with your sermons. You had your chance to play once, remember?” He shrugged, casual, almost bored.

The handsome skeleton let out a groan that might’ve been a sigh. “And look what’s left of me.”

The devil’s grin widened, teeth bright as bone in candlelight. “Trucha.” he echoed, voice rolling smooth as smoke coiling over coals as he explained the rules. "A little game my abuelo taught me, Punta de Lanza. Three dice. Roll a point, or a triple. One throw. That’s it. No second chances, no mercy. You roll a pair and a six? That’s a point of six. Roll triples de seises? You own the night…!"

“¡Órale!” the man in red said. “May the gods favor you tonight."


She caught the shape of the boy in the doorway, eyes wide as coins and dusty shoes. A grin too bright for this world. Daniyah pushed off the bar with a sigh, leaving Garrod to his devil and his dice. The wraithbinder stepped through the crowd like someone walking out of a dream. One hand on the boy's shoulder she led him out from the cantina. Daniyah’s boots crunched on the cobbled stones as she approached the group of children, their baskets empty now.

“You got to the house?” The boy nodded. “Good.” Daniyah handed the boy a small pouch with coins to share with his friends. The children bubbled with nervous laughter, chattering about the noises, the voice and moving doors as the older boy counted the coins and started to hand them out. Daniyah let them talk, nodding along, while her eyes flicked back toward the cantina.

The smallest girl, cheeks smeared with paint. “It… it moved!” she stammered, wide-eyed. “The shutters... they banged! B-but I did it! I put flowers at the door." Daniyah’s lips twitched into the faintest of grim smiles. "You,” she added, pointing at the little girl who’d made it all the way to the door, “you were the bravest. Here.” She pressed a gold coin into the girl’s hand. "Don’t lose it.”

“Good work,” she said finally, “Now. Go on, scatter!" The kids ran off giggling. She exhaled, and her shoulders dropped slightly. Paper banners rippled overhead, bright skulls and saints grinning down in candlelight. She found an empty wicker basket beside a shuttered stall, still warm from someone else’s hands. She carried it toward the flower stand at the corner.

“Still open?” Daniyah asked.

“For the dead,” the old woman murmured, pushing herself upright. "Siempre"

Daniyah picked through the blooms. Big dusty white peonies, soft as sin. Roses, deep and wet-looking in the firelight. Marigolds, fat with color. She placed them one by one into the basket until it looked heavy enough to honor a king or... the ghost of someone who thought himself one.

“How much?”
 
A click of the teeth like striking a sparker ring. The whole room moving and melting. Like the yawning maw of a jaguar. Wider and wider, with tongue twisting. Just so it could shut down and crunch through the bone all the better.

The dice pulsed. And beat. Their steady rhythm, run down through the too taught skin of his palm and all along his spine. Coiled in his gut. And there in his mind he could hear Belephus laugh.

"Pinche Diablo," he said with a sigh, all resignation. "I really wanted those crab legs," took the dice box. Looked to Ray del Hueso. "Blow on em," grinned. "Para la suerte, y la venganza," too much fun in it.

The fancy skeleton grinned. Wicked and sharp. Blew on the bones.

"Asi mero," Garrod laughed. Shook the dice. Cast them quick against the copal box. Could swear he saw them spark with each trike and skip. Green and purple, yellow and red.

Six. One...

Garrod's lips splayed wide with teeth. Eye on the dice as it tumbled and span. A howl of wind that wailed through the cantina. Ripped through the stone Jaguar teeth. All green eyed in the moment.

Three.

"No manches,"
---

A heavy gold coin clicked down on the counter top. The long blue beak of a dusty old cap bowing to the flower merchant. White feather waving proudly in the wind.

"Para las flores, Doña," Garrod said softly as he rose up. Voice lilting up and down some as he wavered in the wind.

Sweat struck, and smiling. He had a bottle of something cheap tucked under his arm.

"Eres tu, Garrod?" The old woman beamed.

"Doña Lucero,"

"Ay muchachon, si Eres tu!" Her eyes bright. She forgot about the coin and went around her stall to wrap around the ghost from her past. Arms all big squeeze as old bones pressed soft and squish with what strength they had.

"Ay, niño traviezo!" Half a scold, puro amor. "It's been so long, I could hardly recognize you." Let go some and stepped back. Looked to Daniyah, "When I saw the cap I thought, Mirror's moon, Artorias has finally come to pay me a visit!" she looked up to Garrod. Some pride clear in her eyes. Looked to Daniyah again. Realizing something. "Are these for ese viejo?" She smiled warmly. Old hands working themselves against each other in loving knots. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you tonight,"
 
“Emeraldo,” the man in red said. He rolled the dice and got a spear of sixes. “Seems fortune frowns on you tonight.” He reached for a glass, tall and thin. “A shame. But luck is a fickle friend, ya sabes.” He set the glass down in front of Garrod.

The liquid swirled inside the glass, caught every flicker of the candles. “Drink,” the devil said, almost casually, as though nothing could be more natural than offering a man the drink of endless indulgence. He stepped back, one hand resting lightly on the edge of the bar. No matter how much was poured or drunk from the glass, the level would not fall; the bottom was a shadow, unreachable, leaving the drink to flow endlessly...


Daniyah watched the old woman’s eyes light up at the sight of Garrod in the old hat. The ashen-haired woman stepped back a pace, letting the exchange between the old woman and Garrod get the room it needed. The warmth of the moment washed over her. She offered a small, careful smile, nudging the memory along. “You knew Sinns?” she asked the old woman. Gentle tone, hoping to coax good memories out for Garrod to hold onto.
 

Garrod took the cup. Head already tilting and whirling the more as he stared at all the stars turning there in the glass. Something in him twist. Hard and jagged.

He drank from the cup. A quick shot turned gulp gulp. Tilt the cup up. Felt it all wash down. Spill over his lips. It tasted like life he was hungry for. Like pine needles smelled, and river mud felt. It made him hear bells. The clatter of cold coins. Felt the gentle touch of fingers work in his hair. Trace across his scars.

He closed his eye and saw the stars up in the sky as he felt warmth against his chest. Hair between his fingers. He clutched at the glass the more. Gulp after gulp. Pressed the glass hard. Till he felt the hard bite of teeth. The cut on his lip stung hard enough to pull his mouth off the cup's rim. A slosh of drink splashed on him and the counter. Mouth full of a sweetness most foul.

All rotting corpse in an old house. He passed it down. Teary eyed. Set the cup down on the table with a pant pant as he tried to catch his breath. Hand trembling. Gut twisting.

Laughed harsh and broken. Felt the drink haze over the old hurts. "Y ahora que," a hiccup. "Diablo?" wiped his mouth off. All easy smile and glassy eye as he swayed. Felt warm blood on his mouth. Wobbled. Wiped it away.

---

"Oh, linda mujer, we all knew Sinns en este barrio." She laughed. All humming bird wings in the sun. "Knew him por todo El Pueblin," she smiled, full of fondness, sweet as the cempaxochitl petals that were scattered about by the wind. "He would buy flowers for every ofrenda on the street," she looked to Garrod, didn't mind none how ruined he looked. "And this one would always be there after him, his little sombrita. Helping make sure each altar had something to honor those who have passed on to the next life,"

If the words moved him, it was hard to tell. How he just wavered there, all papel picado in the breeze. A hiccup.

Doña Lucero frowned. "I know it was hard for you at the end, mi niño, pero no te acuerdaz como caminabas como el? How you used to walk like him. Todo, honrado y con orgullo on those days you carried bushels of marigolds. Days before the lantern flowers glowed?" Her smile couldn't help but return. "Head high as the feather your wearing."

Garrod's eye scrolled up. Cloudy and wet. His whole body swayed. He reeked of spilled spirits. New jug still under his wing.

Doña Lucero looked more determined than sad. "The night is still young, joven," she said and scooped up the gold coin. "Y los espiritus have sent you help,"
 
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First, a few laughs. Then claps. Then the steady rhythm of hands striking tables, boots stomping floorboards, and voices rising like drums under a blood moon. “¡Dale, cazador! ¡Bebe, bebe!” they cheered on Garrod. Someone whistled.

The enchanted glass splintered, crushed away by the splintering memory of a painful kiss. It was a blade-edge memory, the terrible kindness of a woman's lips, an obsidian shard she’d thrust into his mind. The world settled back into place, the sweetness on his tongue the only thing that stayed behind.

“Carajo!” The Red Devil hissed, all coyote-snouted and crimson-skinned, eyes glinting gold and coal. “Ahh, look at you. You found your footing again. Most men would still be drowning in the stars I poured them. Emeraldo, you are full of surprises.” He clapped slowly. Once, twice. "And for that I applaud you.”

Rey del Hueso was quick to clean the counter, away with pieces of enchanted glass and away with spilled liquor. "Some say a lover’s lips should be kind." He murmured, tilting his head, shadowing his half his bony face. A slow, delighted chuckle unfurled from the devil’s throat. It was soft and rich, like all forbidden spices.

The Red Devil leaned forward, features softening to something almost sorrowful. He leaned in close, the scent of smoke and warm spices wafted off him. “Pain,” he said, in a whisper that brushed Garrod’s ear. “is a better anchor than love. Love drifts. Pain… keeps you where you are.”

He plucked the dice from the counter and rolled them across his knuckles, the sound like rattling bones. “I came to play, not to preach.” He spun the dice once and caught them in his palm, his smile curling foxlike.

"Eso merece un brindis, verdad?" He called out, and the people of the cantina listened to him “Not to sorrow, not to sin! But to men who know when to stop drinking!" The devil’s grin sharpened. His laughter rolled low, like low drums beneath a temple floor. The crowd began to swirl, a drunken, delighted storm.

“Which is never.” His voice drowned in the revelry of the cantina.


Daniyah could tell by the way he swayed that Garrod was deep in the bottle. His green eye glimmered wetly.

Her chest burned with sorrow, maybe, or guilt for feeling anything at all. The memories between the old woman and Garrod wasn’t hers to touch, and yet it reached her all the same. Like a candle’s glow brushing the edge of the night. She swallowed and tried for a smile.

This was what tonight was meant to be about... warmth, memory, the small mercies of the living for the sake of the dead. She didn’t have much to draw from herself. Her own dead had never been spoken of with fondness. The idea of honoring them with flowers and sugar skulls felt almost obscene. But Garrod had someone worth remembering. Someone that had been good.

Her eyes shifted toward the food stalls, where the air was thick with roasted corn, grilled meat, and sweet bread dusted with sugar. “He’d want food, wouldn’t he?"
 
The Red Devil spoke in the way all devils did. Truth swirled with the lies. Like all those little stars he had set into the drink. As was in all good poetry, art, and life.

Just enough to keep you going. Just enough for another game. Another drink. So you could see another day. Ask another question. Beg for a little more.

And he could feel the sound of claws scraping against black glass that wouldn't give.

"El dolor, y el tormento," Garrod sat amidst the wash of cheer and applause. Tongue still tingling. Lip still stinging. Looked to El Rey de Hueso. Slapped a piece of gold Maldizia on the counter, and made to get up. "El socorro, y la misericordia," wobbled and waivered. "Both go hand in hand, Diablo de los duelos mas picantes," hopped over the bar. Ate shit on the other side. huffed through the numbed pain.

Dust settled about him, and he stared at the fat clay jug there near the bottom of the shelves. Reached out and grabbed the jug. Got up with a grunt, and dusted himself off. Took up nine silver pieces from his purse, all jingle and chime before he slapped them on the table. "Eso es el baile de la vida," hopped up on the counter.

Wavered some, felt a breeze he knew couldn't be there lift him up. Caught his balance. Looked up at the old blue hat that hung over the bar. Snatched it up and donned it, almost falling. He steadied. Hiccuped. "The roll against death," winked at the Red Devil. All Cazadore after the hunt under his blue cap. "For just a little more sugar, un poquito mas spice,"

Hopped off the counter and walked out all tall. With a clumsy swagger.

"Oh," Garrod said with a smile. "He'd want food," so they turned toward the food. Un viento cargado con tantos pedasos de cempaxochitl. And Doña Lucero was scattered in the breeze of golden lantern petals. "Hated sweets, though" he shared as they moved between the stalls, his fingers feeling the plump red tomatoes. "Be more pissed if I bought it," he said absently. Checking the strings of chillies, all dried and hung about the doors and stands alike. Deep greens, and bright reds. "Would always say red meat was only for the hunts,"

Bright chiles de árbol, long like rat tails, and bird beaks. Deep smoke colored chipotles, and their green counterparts, jalapeño. Fresh and fiery, and crisp to the bite. Garlic bulbs still in their papery husks. Limones, sal, y aguacates with their rough obsidian skin. Soft and tender to the press of firm fingers. He tossed the best one to her. "Careful," He warned with a wink. Looked back to the goods. Piled them on a wicker basket of his own, careful as he could be with his clumsy hands, not to drop any part of the ofrenda. "Has atrapado mi corazón negro," he said wistful with nostalgia as he smiled. "You've trapped my black heart," Fixed the last bits quietly. Fished for some coin.
 
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Daniyah caught the vegetable he tossed her, its dark, knobbled skin rough against her palm, heavier than she expected. “Mm.” she murmured. She turned it over slowly before putting it into her basket. “How many times did you practice at saying that?” Her tone was touched with the faintest humor.

She ducked under the garlands of marigolds strung between the stalls, shedding petal trails of light in the night wind. The music from a nearby guitar bled through the noise, soft and mournful. Velas burning low in clay bowls, their flames trembling in the drift of a perfumed breeze filled with epazote, hoja santa, cilantro. The air was warm with all the smells.

Daniyah lingered beside him as he bartered for the chiles. “Was it Sinns who taught you to cook?” her voice was somewhere between curiosity and encouragement. Her words carried an easy lilt, but beneath it was purpose, a wish to draw out the good from all the ruin. To remind him that the dead weren’t only bones and silence, that they’d laughed once too.

Above, strings of papel picado fluttered like the spirits’ own breath, the cutouts of butterflies, skulls, and cats casting moving shadows over Garrod’s face. The bells of the small shrine at the corner chimed as a small wind passed, with the soft, hollow, echoing laughter from the other side.
 
"At least once, on the walk over," he said with a wobbly smile. Drifted on the drink laden dream, so full of scents and sounds he had long forgotten. Out on las rondillas of the Malcazadores.

"Another when I saw you there, con la Doña," tapped the side of his temple with wet sprigs of cilantro. All brujo banishing the maldiciones. "And again when I grabbed up the black fruit that fell from its proud tree," tossed the green sprigs over the bounty of vegetables, herbs, and fruit. All blessing for the bunch. "All gift from the gods," found her eyes with his green one. "Just for me to give to you," simple as the truth fall from his mouth. Riding the sweet waves of the guitar strings, humming warm sorrows through the night as practiced fingers struck the chords.

Overhead of the pueblin a crawler trolly clinked and clanked, geared and hissed, in its almost living rhythm. All steady on its pace across the lines of the Spider's Way. It was a sound that wailed against the soft putter of the candle lights. Thanks given for the haul. Coins exchanged, and on they walked.

Basket full to the brim. Looked more for a feast, than a single altar.

Marigolds all lit with their spirit lantern light.

Was it Sinns who taught you to cook?

"Course it was," he said easy. "Gave me my first lesson on it all." looked to her. "Un hombre cocina," he grinned beneath the blue hat's brim. "A man cooks."

The papel picado fluttered with with the stir of the night's cool breath. The cats and the skulls danced against the walls as the distant laughter echoed off the bone white plaster of the time stained adobe.

Garrod could see it, there in the ripple of the bell's chime. In how the shadows swirled, and the scent of herbs curled across the winds of time.

From beneath the blue hat, stepped the memory of Artorias Sinns. Tall and straight backed, dark whiskers curled proudly and neatly beneath his aquiline nose. Black booted, with a long tailed coat snapping behind him.

Cut his way across the cobbles. "Vamos, muchachin," a sharp smile there beneath his mustache. Eyes hard as the spine of his knives. "Esos cangrejos aren't going to shell themselves!" watched a moment for a gangly shadow to follow after the smiling Sinns. A thick hemp net, loaded up with kicking and prodding mudcrabs, slung over his shoulder, and hauled up the way.

"They keep pinching me!" the green eyed boy cried out. Head leaned away from the net, where an errant claw got hold of his long black hair.

Sinns just laughed. "Para que te ponges trucha, muchachin!" just went on stepping. Long strides all sure. Straight through Daniyah.

"W-wait! Sinns! Esperame!" the little boy called out. Shift the haul, and hurried after. Chanclas slapping against the stonework of the alleyway.

Both gone under the garlands of the cempaxochitl, and the tingle of bells.

Garrod slipped off the hat, gave Daniyah a nod for her to follow to the little shrine. Hung the hat there. Feather all painted gold by the candle light.

No food left for the dead.

He let down his brimming basket. Knelt down with a sway, and wobble there before the bells. Picked up a tomate. Took his knife began to cut it into clean slices.

"What did Brayan like to eat?" he asked. Eye on the task of the tomatoes. Too drunk not to focus. Laying each new slice down on the altar like a bursting red sun. If a little misaligned.
 
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"All gift from the gods... Just for me to give to you,"

She caught his gaze, the warmth swirling in that single green eye. Daniyah felt it, a small tug at the edges of her carefully guarded heart. She smiled, careful and controlled, a tilt of lips. Trying not to give away too much. She tilted her head, letting the shadow of the stall cut across her eyes, playing it cool and looking intensely at the long green beans.

Sinns, alive in the echoes, moving with that impossible confidence, like the world couldn’t touch him. Then her eyes flicked to the boy trailing after him. So small, so stubborn, so desperate to catch up. Daniyah froze, shoulders stiffening as the figure passed through her. The warmth of the memory pressed against her chest, like sunlight through smoke.

Daniyah hadn’t expected the question. Her mind flicked back to Brayan. She let out a small sigh in an exhale. “Brayan?” she said softly, as if testing the name in the night air. A small, humorless smile tugged at her lips.

“He preferred to be cooked for." The man had liked to be served, like a king in a castle of hunters. How often did he not piss off the old Den Master of Drakhorn, asking her to bring him food or something to drink? Daniyah tilted her head, recalling the reckless, dangerous charm of the Silver Hook.

“Always had food brought to him. Meat, cheese, bread. He loved his cheese... some so strong it would curl the tongue." Oh, she missed the spreads he used to arrange... Thick slabs of smoked venison or boar, salted and spiced, stacked like miniature battlements. Cheese, pale and crumbly. Cured sausages, thin slices of blood-sweet ham, pickled roots, and bitter greens tucked between... but they were more for show than taste.

Her mind drifted, unbidden, back to the first times she had touched real food. After Brayan took her under his wing. For someone raised to drink blood, to live on the ritual and hunger of The Red Mouth, the taste and texture of human food had been alien. The tiny sausages, glistening with fat and slightly bloody, and the sharp cheddars cut into neat bites, had become her bridge back to humanity.

"And he loved sweet things. Figs split open like hearts. Honey. Juicy grapes. Sugared ginger. Sweet apple pies... And always wine. Red, sweet, and never enough. Pretty women and men. He ate them all."

She barely noticed the tiny, darting shapes weaving through her legs as she walked over to the shrine. A sudden yip made her stagger. She almost tripped over a pair of techichi, their tiny paws skittering across the stones. The dogs paused at the base of the shrine, sniffing at the offerings, their dark eyes glittering like obsidian beads.
 
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Garrod chuffed. Putting the last bit of tomate down in the round. Half the fruit the heart, eight neat slices its drunken rays.

"A man of great appetites," he said with a soft smile picked up a green jalapeno. Sliced it through the middle, and set it like two slivered moons at each side of the sun. Let his eye cut toward Daniyah. "Different as they were, en eso estaban juntos," he took his time with it. How he watched her bright hair catch in that same breeze that stirred the banners of papel picado. A curl of those lips he knew tasted so sweet. "Nuestros viejos,"

Could see the old bear, and his horrible pull on the world around him. All the power and cunning of a beast that knew how to grow old, and stay at the top of it all.

"Miralo," he could hear old Sinns say. Voice on the wind. "Una bestia sin verguenza," but there was always a grudging respect to the way he smirked. "Oye, Brayan! I can smell you from over here!" he called out from across a wide crowd. Too proud of the jab at an old rival. Whistled con filo. "Orale, muchachin, go and fetch us that bottle," the sound of a crowd.

Shades of blues and purples, incense smoke carried by the breeze, and on the hairs of the techichi, given shape to faceless bodies, and Old Sinns. There by the garlands he had vanished under.

A click of teeth. "I'm not a muchachin any more, viejo," almost a grown man. Hair cropped short, with a duelist's blade at his hip. The green eyed youth cocked a brow and slant a lip as he stared across the way. "I could take him," he muttered under his breath as he leaned back on his heals, arms crossed about the chest.

Sinns barked an ugly laugh. "Cascabelero!" he said with a thwack over the green eyed boy's head. "Do as you are told, go on now, before the old monster hears you,"

A yap yap from the techichis, who scurried through the smoke.
 
The crowd of memory shimmered, paper banners trembling in a wind that wasn’t there, incense smoke bending toward Brayan's voice. Her throat tightened at the sound of him, the gravel in his laughter, the rolling warmth in his vowels. The tilt of his shoulders, the cocked grin, the glint of that ridiculous brass talisman he always wore around his wrist.

"Ey, Sinns!” he barked back from the other side. Called through the haze, the smoke.

"Mon dieu, you still have your little faucon still following you, eh?” The wind carried a lazy hum of an old harp, strung by a half-drunk. Brayan had a chuckle that rumbled like thunder in his broad chest.

"Still clingin’ to your coat like a church mouse, eh? You sure you’re not raising a choirboy instead of a fighter?” The ember of his pipe glowing red between his teeth. Dancing between the stalls like a lost firefly, glowing like the devil’s wink. “You ever let him loose, old wolf? Are you scared he’ll start running faster than you?” He jerked his whisker-patched chin toward the young specter, green-eyed and all so proud.

“While you polish your old dusty legends, Sinns, ma fille forges hers.” He kissed his fingers, flicked the gesture skyward with that rakish pride of his. "Gold!”

The memory dissolved like watercolors in water, colors bleeding back into the living world. As the smoke began to thin, his laughter faded into the wind, a rasping, melodic hum, like an old song. Herded away by watchful temple dogs. A few stubborn notes caught in the paper garlands before silence took them. Daniyah stood quiet for a beat, her eyes fixed where his ghost had been, the air still tasting faintly of tobacco.

“You done?” she asked, “If we hurry, we can still buy candles before the candlemakers go home...”
 
A pinch of salt sprinkled over the offering. A squeeze of lime. He tossed the spent green fruit over his shoulder, and one of the tchichis lept up and snagged it. Little claws skittered and skirt withe clitters and clacks as it landed.

"Vamos, pues," he said as he got up from the little mural of chilies verdes y tomate rojo. Sangrados con sal y limon, para poco mas sabor.

Grabbed up the old blue hat he had hung on the altar. Gave it a twist with a flick of the wrist and play of the fingers. End over end until it capped the top of Daniyah's mane of moonlight. Just there, not a step between them as he looked down at her. "Suits you," he said with a wink and a smile. "Mi Reyna de la noche,"

The jumping tchichi snarled and growled playfully, all wag of the tail as it chewed and chewed the old lime skin. Sparks of vibrant green and electric blues pulsing down trails in its fur, painted by fingers full of moonlight. There a moment. Gone the next. Like ripples of so much color come across a river's rippling skin.

The other bark barked and hurried off.
 
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