Chapter Text
Tonight's a good night - wine, women, and song. Miguel's guitar gleefully provides the latter. The former two are supplied by the last of their gold.
This is usually the hour that they'll drunkenly shamble off with a pretty face. But tonight they have different appetites to fill. They carefully measure out their wine cups while the rest of the bar eagerly imbibes. Miguel's songs are less bawdy, more upbeat. He's less inclined to seduce than he is to assure the bar everything is at ease. It is not just pretty faces they search the crowd for.
Their taste in prey differs. Tulio vindictively sets his sights on a brawny man that had the gall to imply his dice were weighted. Miguel... picks a pretty brunette. He almost always does. His pleasures run a little too close together.
Miguel still has the easier time of it. These days can't blindly hypnotize with his breath alone, but his glamour is handsome as ever. A smile and a purred suggestion are all he needs to take her hand in his. He knows a lovely spot overlooking the river.
Miguel lures his prey. His partner still prefers the hunt.
As his chosen prey becomes increasingly drunken and belligerent, Tulio slips out into the dark. With a relieved sigh he drops his glamor. A lot of shapes come naturally to him, but never this one. Even with centuries of practice and bitter necessity, a human face is hard to hold. Especially when he's peckish.
Not long after, the brawny man gets himself thrown onto the street. The barkeep slams the door in his face. Inside, the bar roars with applause and jeer out the windows. Tulio's prey hurls foul words and foul gestures back. Fuming, he storms into the dark. Light and more busier streets are the other way. Not like this man feels up to anymore human interaction tonight. Tulio always picks his targets well.
More than once, the man whirls around. He raises his fists.
No one's ever behind him but a mongrel sniffing at the gutter, or a stray white cat crouched in the alleyway. Whenever he turns and staggers his way on, Tulio bares his fangs in a smirk. He teases the idiot until his blood boils.
Once the street truly becomes desolate, hunger overpowers the urge to play. Tulio swells from a patchy mutt into his true form. He stalks invisibly forward. Chains rattle with every step.
His prey whips around, spittle flying. "Show yourself, you fucking coward!"
Tulio dutifully manifests. His shaggy sides nearly brush both sides of the narrow alley. The brawny man gapes into his burning red eyes.
Tulio springs, and gorges himself on his fear.
Come morning, Seville will discover his body cold and stiff, face forever frozen in mortal terror. Aside from the unnatural claw marks raking his chest, his body will be untouched. It is not flesh a black dog feeds on.
Miguel isn't anywhere near as picky an eater. Tulio's promptly tracks down the human entrails floating on the Guadalqavir, then follows the dank scent of kelpie upriver. He discovers his partner with his glamor mostly in place. If his reflection didn't always show the water horse, he'd admire all his faces. Instead his fingers preen anxiously through his hair.
"How's my hair?"
"Perfect. Your smell, on the other hand..."
Miguel sticks his tongue out at him. He weaves another layer over his guise, so dull human noses won't smell mildew and dead fish. "Oh, like you're one to talk!"
The black dog's form is briefly swallowed in blue flame. "See?" He smugly throws out his hands. "Human as they come."
Miguel sniffs. "I didn't realize humans were headless these days."
With much concentration and cursing, Tulio gets that part too. "All better?"
His partner purrs. "Much better."
Sunrise saps their strength and locks them to their glamors. In broad daylight, the human mind is far less susceptible to them. Fae power comes from shadow and moonlight, suggestions whispered on the wind and primal fears no church can ever banish. Tulio doesn't mind in the slightest. For him, human form is always harder to hold. It's easier to convince these suckers he's one of them if he can't fall back on nocturnal shadows like Miguel can a deep, dark water source.
Bellies sated, they wonder the streets in search of something fun to do. Plans for are for dumb, boring mortals. They fixate on those gambling sailors because they're the first interesting thing they stumble across.
Tulio throws some spare change into the pot. He grins as their pile grows and grows. He loves gold almost as much he does riling up the gamblers. Miguel gleefully strums his guitar and draws in an even bigger crowd to bask in. They drain the suckers dry. Except for the stupid map. Tulio wants it on basic principal. Miguel's eyes light up with genuine excitement. He always gets wanderlust for the lands no fae will ever lay eyes on.
This time the sailor insists on using his own dice. Tulio agrees without complaint. He and Miguel will dash off with as much as they can carry for any number that lands. It will be glorious chaos all around.
Tulio is stunned as the sailors when the dice actually land seven. He and Miguel rub in their victory.
Their gloating cuts short as his own weighted dice tumble out of his vest. Accusatory eyes swing their way. It's not the burly guards that terrify Tulio. Deep blue eyes flash red at their metal breast plates, their rapiers.
Cold iron. Ugh.
Before he and Miguel are cornered, they start blaming each other. Their insults ramps up into an elaborate display of fisticuffs. The crowd backs up enough for them to bolt for it. They vault over a low wall... right into the pen of a massive black bull.
Animals are not so easily deceived. The bull's nostrils flare on the twined scents of dead fish and grave dirt. He charges. And plows right through his pen to trample them dead under his hooves.
Their chase ends above a sheer drop off and several open barrels far below. There's only one way out of this.
"I'll bet we can make that!"
"Two reales says we can't!"
"You're on!"
They leap for it. Tulio makes his jump. He scrambles to throw the lid over his hiding place.
And realizes too late he's imprisoned himself.
Tulio swoons against the side of the barrel. The thin wood is a poor barrier from the ineffable force outside. His head spins from a nauseating mix of cold metal and pickle brine.
"M-Miguel," he chokes out. "What's... What's happening here?"
"We're both in barrels," his partner woozily answers back. "That's the extent of my knowledge."
"They still make barrel hoops out of wood, right?" Tulio's heart beat ramps up. "Right?"
"I... I don't..."
Miguel's voice trails wearily off. Tulio whispers his name, again and again. With no response, he frantically throws himself against the lid of his prison. Each attempt is weaker than the last. Outside the iron saps his strength.
Plans? What plans? Centuries of careful human habitats devolve into primal panic.
Not like this, not like this, goodgodsnotlikethis. Theskythesky... Let me see... the sky... They let... me... have... last...
Certain he will never see the sun or the stars again, Tulio sinks into oblivion.