Voices of Home 2/3
Tulio prayed - really prayed, to a god he hadn’t believed in since he was a child - that they were heading in the right direction. They had found a freshwater stream not long after leaving the bridge, and following the logic that stream leads to river leads to ocean leads to Spain, had soon found the river that they now camped beside each night. The tone of their journey had shifted dramatically since the bridge - namely, it was quieter. Much quieter. Miguel and Chel were mostly silent, except for occasional discussions in a low murmur scarcely discernable from the sound of the river, and Tulio didn’t exactly have anyone to talk to. He hadn’t realized how used he was to Miguel’s inane chatter, their easy banter and the opportunity to comment dryly on the latest crazy idea to come upon his partner, until now that it was denied him completely. It had been bad enough in El Dorado when Miguel wasn’t speaking to him, but at least then he had been able to talk to Chel, or the Chief, of the villagers, and be understood. Now... goddammit, he missed even that.
It was even worse when they camped for the night. Chel ,being the most knowledgeable about what plants wouldn’t kill them instantly, took Miguel who, by virtue of being able to understand what she was saying, helped her collect food for them every night. This left Tulio alone at the campsite to build a fire as best he could and attempt to catch fish. As fire-building rarely took more than a few minutes and his companions were often as not gone for at least two hours, this meant a lot of fruitless fishing attempts and silent waiting. Tulio had never felt this alone, this frustrated, this helpless. At night they drew for watch shifts, and Tulio would spend his staring up at the unfamiliar patterns the stars made as he tried not to think about yellow eyes watching him from the shadows, or brown eyes warm with lust, or green eyes sparkling with innocent mischief, or blue eyes filling up with despair a drop a day. He tried very hard not to think about eyes at all.
It was the third night that Tulio drew third watch, and Chel woke him from fitful sleep at what he fancied might be three in the morning (three threes, he thought with only the slightest knife-edge of hysteria). He stood, tried without success to brush the dirt off of his now-dingy blue shirt and brown vest, and placed a hand on Chel’s shoulder in thanks. She kissed him on the cheek, and Tulio wished that he could talk to her, tell her - but she was already snuggling herself down under Altivo’s horse-smelling blanket, and the moment was gone. Tulio settled himself down on a rock by the river, began the fight to keep his eyes open and alert, and tried for the thousandth time to find a solution to this insane problem. Is was insane, Tulio knew - how could two people speak perfect Spanish one minute, and something else the next? How could they leave him alone like this?
A sudden noise shattered Tulio’s reverie and he tensed, mind racing to formulate a plan that would keep them safe from - the sound came again, and it was strangely familiar. It took a moment for memory to return and attach meaning to the sound, but when it did Tulio was already levering himself off of the rock and making his careful way to Miguel’s sleeping form in the dark. He was whimpering in his sleep, curled like a child, the sheen of sweat on his forehead silver in the moonlight. Nightmares, Tulio thought with a guilty start. Miguel hadn’t had nightmares since... it had to have been at least ten years. They had come to him every night when the two had first teamed up, but had quickly decreased in frequency to once a fortnight, once a month, once a year. Tulio had never asked; they hadn’t known each other well enough then, and Miguel never brought up the subject. But now... it had to be this situation, stress and whatnot.
“God damn it,” Tulio whispered, slamming his fist into the soft ground next to his sleeping partner. His arm shook, and there was something in his eye, curse it all.
Miguel was whimpering more loudly, almost forming words. “Please... please, no...” Tulio reached over to pull the blanket higher over Miguel’s form, and then froze as realization struck him.
Spanish. Miguel was speaking Spanish. “Miguel!” he hissed, shaking his friend’s shoulder. “Miguel, can you understand what I’m saying? God damn it, wake up! Can you understand me?”
Miguel groaned, rolling away from Tulio. “’Course I can, Tulio,” he said, voice thick with sleep. “What’re you talking -” Green eyes shot open, sleep clearing from them to show astonished joy. He scrambled to sit up, then grabbed Tulio’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug, exclaiming happily... in gibberish.
Tulio felt his shoulders slump with disappointment. Had he imagined Miguel speaking Spanish, was three days really enough for hallucinations to begin? And yet, Miguel had to have understood him as well, considering the outburst he was being subjected to...
When Tulio didn’t return his excited babble, Miguel pulled away from the hug. “Tulio?” His eyes were bright, searching.
Tulio turned away, unable to face his partner. “I’m sorry, Miguel,” he said, trying not to sound as defeated as he felt. He turned back to Miguel, trying to mask the despair in his face and eyes. “I’m sure...” he trailed off at the sight of his friend, the joy dissipating from his expression. Miguel sat back, something hollow in his posture, and Tulio felt the knife that had been tearing at his insides ever since the bridge twist. This wasn’t the Miguel he knew, but what could he do? He settled for laying what he hoped was a reassuring hand on Miguel’s shoulder. “You were speaking Spanish, I know you were. That’s a step in the right direction.” He injected as much hope into his voice as he could, considering how low his personal supplies were. “I said I’d fix this, and I will. I just need more time to plan.” And some sort of idea as to how this insanity happened. “Go back to sleep.” He gently pushed Miguel down, and the gold-haired man obediently curled on the ground. Some of the hollowness was gone, masked by exhaustion. He looked up at Tulio, childlike, some of that fragile hope returned to his gaze. He said something in gibberish, and although he couldn’t understand the exact words, Tulio heard the trust and the tremor of fear in his partner’s voice. He reached down and, hesitantly, brushed a lock of gold hair out of Miguel’s eyes. “Go to sleep,” he repeated softly, and returned, frustrated and hopeful, to his watch.
***
Ten days of silence, and Tulio found that he couldn’t take it anymore. He was still talking to Miguel and Chel as though they could understand him, but now he was also talking to himself as they made their way through the thick jungle along the meandering river, and imagining what Miguel might say in return. Chel had taken to giving him worried glances when she thought he wasn’t looking, and it was beginning to worry him that he didn’t really care. Miguel’s nightmares had continued to appear every night, and Tulio almost felt guilty that he had starting cheating to make sure that he had third watch every night, just so that he could hear a voice other than his own that he could understand. So, to try and distract himself from the problem, he had started trying to teach Chel and Miguel to speak Spanish. Chel was a quick learner and already forming broken sentences after a few days of instruction, but every time Miguel tried to learn it seemed as though the words couldn’t stick, as though they were carried out of his mind like leaves on a stream. Chel attempted to translate from time to time, but her Spanish was so limited that Tulio could barely understand her when she was trying to say something simple like “I’m hungry”, or “the fire is going out.” Anything more complex than that (and in many cases, things that were less so) tended to be accompanied by wild hand gestures and exaggerated tone, and still took an infuriatingly long time to be understood. Tulio was beginning to recognize a few of the words in whatever language it was that Chel and Miguel were speaking, although the snail’s pace at which he was acquiring it was almost as frustrating as Miguel at his most idiotically enthusiastic. No matter how well Chel was doing or how many words he could recognize, however, Tulio felt… wrong. Words were his life, his career - words had gotten him into and out of all kinds of fantastic trouble, had made a city believe him a god. Words were supposed to be the tool with which he shaped the world to his needs, and now he was reduced to phrases an idiot would laugh at. It was humiliating, it was frustrating… and it was lonely.
That night, when Chel woke him for his watch, she did not shake him. He woke to the sensation of her lips on his forehead, opened his eyes to a softly smiling face and dark eyes brimming with something that needed no words to express. She bent and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, and for a minute, he kissed back. He wanted this, dear god he wanted this, but…
He pulled away, reluctant to give up that warmth, and shook his head. “Chel… I can’t. Not now, I - I need to fix this.” He pressed his fingers to his lips, then to hers, and looked over to where Miguel was sleeping. “It’s not… once this is over, Chel, I swear -” he was cut off by Chel pressing two fingers to his lips in an echo of his own action, a sad smile on her lips and an unreadable expression in her eyes. Once she was certain that he would be quiet she sat back, kneeling on the forest floor, and spread her arms like wings. It took Tulio a moment to realize that she was miming something, some great space, or perhaps…
“The canyon, the bridge?” Tulio asked. Yes, this had all happened after they had crossed the bridge. His mind raced back. Chel had mentioned something about voices… “[Spirits do?]” he asked in her language, stumbling over the unfamiliar words and indicating his mouth.
Chel nodded vigorously, and began to babble so quickly that any words Tulio might have recognized were completely obscured. She seemed to recognize this, however, and stopped suddenly. She frowned and thought for a few moments and then, in heavily accented Spanish, said, “We... Shibalba place near look?” At Tulio’s obvious confusion, she tried again. “[Spirit] place? Talk... to give?”
Tulio thought that he might be getting the gist of what she was saying, and felt an unreleased sigh like lead in his chest. Find a holy place? Talk to the spirits? That was her solution? “Chel, there’s no such thing as spirits. [No spirits], Chel. Even if there were, why would they help us? If you hadn’t noticed, we pretended to be gods, and I don’t think that would exactly endear us to any of your spirits.”
Chel seemed to sense Tulio’s disbelief, and reached out a hand to smack him upside the head.
“Ow!” Tulio protested, rubbing at his head. Chel didn’t look even remotely sorry. “That hurt, what was that for?”
“[Spirits]!” she said emphatically, followed by a long stream of gibberish punctuated by painful jabs of her finger into his chest.
“Okay, okay!” Tulio said, throwing up his hands in surrender. “[Spirits]! Now stop hitting me!”
Chel obliged, a slightly smug expression on her face. “Watch,” she said, pointing at the darkened jungle. It was one of the first words that she had learned, along with ‘jungle’, ‘danger’, ‘fire’, ‘food’, and various colourful curses from when Tulio became frustrated at the pace of the learning.
Tulio stood, and then bent back down to plant a chaste kiss on Chel’s lips. As he did so, she took hold of him and pulled him into a deeper one. This time, however, she was the first to pull away. Her hand lingered a moment on his cheek, and then she was gone. Alone, Tulio found a stump to sit on, and stared into the darkness with a racing mind and the sweetness of Chel still on his lips.