Xbalanque - Arrival

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Guatemala! Elpis explores the town while trying to find a ride to their destination.



First the bus from hell and now ... chickens. Monet flailed ineffectually at a chicken escaped from the market as it ran between her feet and tossed her bag onto her shoulder. Water dripped steadily from buildings and trees. "Dude. This place is a fucking dump." Monet slapped at a mosquito trying (and failing) to bite her and shook her head. "We came to the tropics in the middle of the wet. Why? It's going to be humid and raining and crap."

"I'm afraid to let my hair down. In this weather?" Terry's hands flickered around her head, describing a halo of frizz as far as she could reach. Given the length of her hair, it probably wasn't that much of a stretch. For all that she sounded fairly cheerful. "Sure it could be worse. I think it's pretty. It's very green, at least." She dodged around another chicken and shook her head at a woman offering pretty wooden masks from her street stall. "And the band's not band. Can you hear them then?"

"I'm Australian. We look at anything green with suspicion." Monet sank to her ankles what had, a moment before appeared to be a very shallow pot hole. Her hiking boots, at least, were waterproof. "No... Could I listen in?" Something in the lessons about telepathic etiquette seemed to be sinking in.

"Hmm? Oh, aye." Terry hummed along for a second as she shuffled her thoughts about, clearing a tidy little space that held just the music and the town, neat as her various teachers along the years had taught. It wasn't merely pushing out the more personal thoughts, not hardly. It was also segregating the rest of the sounds that poured in. Terry had found that most people couldn't handle the cacophony. "There you go."

Monet's eyes unfocussed slightly as she stopped to listen. The music, coming via Terry, was far richer and more complex than she'd ever have heard on her own. "Niiiice. Thanks, dude."

"We all have our advantages." Terry responded with a grin. "Come on. Let's get in. I don't think we'll have a clear sky much longer and I don't want to get soaked."

"Good idea." Monet followed Terry indoors with a wary look at the dark clouds overhead.








The landscape might have been beautiful, but the ride has been so bumpy that Jane had spent at least as much time making sure she'd stayed in her seat as she had looking out the window. She was pretty sure that she had bruises on bruises. Worse, she'd been squished into a seat next to a guy who distinctly smelled of cheese. The stinky kind, not something good like cheddar. Or Velveeta.

"Do I smell like cheese to you?" She asked John, who was standing nearby. She really hoped it hadn't rubbed off on her.

"No, honey. You smell just fine." He faked a smile her way and pushed his way through the crowd. "Come on," he called back to her. "Let's see if there's anything worth purchasing in this goddamn market. Like, a bottle of clean and clear water for example. And hey, if you stop complaining for long enough, maybe I'll buy you a grindstone. How about that?"

Jane grimaced at the cranky firestarter and started to follow him, threading through a small, squealing pack of children. "Oh, really? You promise?" she cried, amping the perky in her voice. "You'll help me find a really pretty one, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "Don't get your hopes up," John muttered, stopping at one of the stalls to look at some of the items that were being sold.

"Tell me again why you signed up for this?"

"I was young and foolish?" Jane flitted past him to the next vendor and picked a small carved panther. "I dunno. It sounded like a good idea and the scenery is pretty. What made you sign up?"

"Right." John waved a one legged beggar away. "The scenery is pretty," he scoffed and reached for what looked like the tooth of some animal. "Who the fuck would buy these things?" He replaced it before moving on to the next stall where he picked up a pair of sandals and checked its size. "I'll give you the plain and simple answer, Jane. I'll give you the truth." John smirked. "I did it for money." He glanced over at her. "Guess we're both into greens."

Jane eyed John. "You're really that cynical? There's no soft heart anywhere under that shell?"

He dropped the sandals and motioned for her to move forward. "Come on. We should catch up with the rest. Last thing I want is for us to get lost," he muttered, glancing from left to right as he passed the many stalls, noting that the vendors sold everything from handicraft to food. He smirked as he watched a man pull the feathers off a dead chicken. "I'm so fucking glad we're nowhere near Princess Monet right now."

Jane threw an irritated look skyward and set the wooden figure down, smiling apologetically at the old woman tending the stall. "She's not that bad. I mean, other than the freaking out over getting dirt on the thousand dollar jeans she wore on a field visit," she replied running past the chicken vendor with her eyes very much averted to catch up. "At least she seems to be having fun so far."

John snickered. "Yeah. I'm sure she's having fun. A hell of a lot of fun."

Jane looped her arm through John's and grinned up at him. "Now we just have to work on you!"








"Hola....muchacha, como estas?" His accent was off and Kevin had already messed it up but he couldn't remember how to say ma'am or lady or whatever word you used for adult, female types when you weren't in the land of the English. He'd never felt so white as he did here, which was saying something having grown up in Atlanta, a city where white people were a minority. "Uh, yeah, can't Ah just point to myself and be like 'gringo' and then point to you when they ask questions? That considered rude?" His eyes swept over the pottery being sold by someone they were walking past. The market was packed, but it was bright and Kevin liked all the people who were milling about.

Julio winced and rubbed his ear. "For someone with as many accents as you, I would think this wouldn't be as hard. But yes, you say 'gringo' and I say 'perdónelo, él es un Imbécil,' and then they will smile and nod knowingly. Or blankly, it depends. Not a whole lot of people speak Spanish very well either." Julio shook his head. "This is why Guatemala is Mexico's retarded little brother."

"Yeah, well, Kentucky and Alabama and Louisana and Georgia and whatever else all are in the same accent family or whatever. They're all southern. Mexico bein' south of America don't make it southern, it makes it foreign. That's harder. You don't hear me talking like a tweaked out Scotsman after bein' at Muir for so long, do you?" Though Julio's point about Kevin's accent was valid. When he'd said it the accent had shifted closer to Kevin's native Atlanta one, softer and less obvious than it'd been a few moments before. "Ruins the effect if Ah realize you're callin' me an imbecile, don't it?"

"Oh I know," Julio said amiably, not caring in the least. He ducked past a stall selling colorfully woven blankets. It really wasn't that much different than a mercado back home, yet here most of the haggling was happening in Quiche. Hopefully there would be someone around who could get them to the Mission, or at the very least point them at someone who could. He stopped at a stall where several men in jeans and cowboy hats were parked near a radio, broadcasting a futból game. "Hold on one second," he said to Kevin. "I'm going to see if I can score us a ride that does not involve chickens."

"Man, and Ah was just startin' to think the cluckin' was kinda sexy," he muttered before Julio went off. Kevin occupied himself by looking at a nearby stall that was selling food. It was mostly produce but if there was food it had Kevin's attention. At least until some woman came up and started rambling away at him. He wasn't sure whether or not she was a whore but she seemed to be propositioning him. And then there was the touching and he was torn between swatting at her hands and inching quickly away from her. Kevin chose to do both. Was she hitting on him in a very aggressive manner? Pale was not the new tan around here, was it? Kevin looked around for Julio to see if he had scored that ride yet so Kevin could, well, run away.

The woman scowled at Kevin and began to chide him loudly. Julio looked up from where he was getting directions and swore. He couldn't leave that guy alone for five minutes, could he? He apologized and jogged over to where Kevin was standing. "Lo siento, perdonamé, él es un imbécil, que no?" he said quickly to the woman while jerking Kevin back sharply. "Dude, watch where you're stepping," he said, pointing at the cloth put on rush mats that Kevin had been standing on. Clearly the other woman's stall.

Kevin glared at Julio when he was called an imbecile. "'Cause Ah'm used to having to check to see where the lines've been drawn in the sand? Eyes on the ground, yeah, yeah, Ah got it." He waved a hand back to the Urban Cowboys Julio had been speaking to. "Go fanagle outta chickens. Ah'll stand in the middle and not touch nothin'." Or, you know, he'd try. How did you manage to stand still with all these people trying to get around you and jostling you gently one way or the other?

Julio shook his head and rolled his eyes heavenwards. He was being punished. Yes, that was it. Punished. "Come on," he sighed. "You are staying right beside me. If you are beheaded it will get blamed on me."

Kevin made a snarl-like face, but he followed Julio. "That mean if we're ever in the south Ah've gotta make sure you don't get yourself lynched? 'Cause that could be hard with that winnin' personality of yours." He was kidding, obviously. The fact that Kevin said more than five words willingly to Julio was proof enough he liked the guy alright.

"I'll keep that in mind," Julio said dryly. One of the men he'd been speaking to stood up and introduced himself, shaking Julio's hand. Julio grinned and returned the man's greeting, before gesturing to Kevin and then motioning at Nash who was very visible across the market. They talked for another minute before the man nodded and tipped his hat to Kevin before slipping away.

"We are in luck, that guy actually works for the place we're going to. And he's got the truck," Julio dusted his hands together.

"Does it have chickens?" He put a hopeful note into his voice, "Or human sacrifices maybe?" There were big, huge Mayan ruins nearby, how do you not ask about the sacrifices?

Julio looked at Kevin and blinked rapidly. "Kevin, if you are ever confronted by a spear-wielding Mayan, you only have to say the following phrase: 'Usted hijo de una cabra y de una puta, le cortaré.**' You got that? Especially that last part, 'le cortaré.' That part is very important."

"Usted hijo de una cabra," he started to repeat, then got lost. "Wait, say that again? And what do you have me sayin'? Ah'm not like declaring how Ah'm saving myself for Hey-zues or anythin', right?" He could have said Jesus, but he knew the other pronunciation would likely get him glared at so how could he resist?

Julio repeated the phrase slowly for Kevin, assuring him it was a protective phrase that Spanish-speaking people said when in danger all while ignoring the strange looks they were garnering. It was a wonder Julio could keep a straight face.

"Now remember that," Julio gave Kevin's shoulder a friendly pat, then turned and waved at Nash, motioning that he'd found them a ride. "Come on, let's go gather the others."

Kevin repeated it, starting with the end of the phrase he'd forgotten the first time. Then he repeated the whole thing another three times, slowly at first but then picking up to something near a normal speed. His accent was still a horrible hybrid of his own and a close approximation of Julio's. It was enough to make you cringe. "Right, get the others." He nodded and then muttered under his breath, "Ah probably just claimed to be a transvestite who likes dressin' up as a ballerina or somethin'."



**"You are the son of a goat and a whore. I'll cut you"