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Hi Face wore a crooked smile that tried to appear mysterious and confident instead Chantico looked like a house cat gloated over it's prize. Chantico's black hair was tied back in a top-knot showing a lined forehead and a hair line that was slowly retreating. Malina could see no grey in his hair or eyebrows, but his face bore the lines of one accustomed to worry. He wore jade earrings in both of his ears and was wearing a red plug in his lower lip. The earrings were a familiar trapping of his rank, but the red plug was new.

"Ahh I see you've noticed." CHantico said with a lazy smile. "It's important to me that you understand that you are not as subtle as you think. I can read you. This," he said tapping the red plug in his lower lip, "this is a new designation. It marks me as one of the returned. A member of the first wave, and one whose name is now written in Xolotl's book."

The gall shocked Malina and she met Chantico's eyes with a start.