#chalchiuhnenetl

[notapaladin]

Teomitl: No. No, that's immoral, probably illegal and we definitely would be in trouble.

Chalchiuhnenetl: Imagine how fun it would be though.

Teomitl: *Sigh* Yeah, you're right. We're doing it.

[notapaladin]

Chalchiuhnenetl: what are you doing?

Teomitl: i’m confronting the person that ruined my life.

Chalchiuhnenetl:

Chalchiuhnenetl: you’re yelling at a mirror.

[notapaladin]

Teomitl: YOU SET THIS UP! YOU SET THIS WHOLE THING UP!

Chalchiuhnenetl: I most certainly did- *walks away*

[notapaladin]

who should you fight? obsblood edition

Acatl: At first glance, Acatl looks like a pushover; he’s a skinny death priest who gets winded after a hard run. You might think you stand a chance if you fight him. You would be wrong. Did I mention the “death priest” part? Yeah, this guy has a minor underworld god on speed-dial. If there’s no magic involved, you might beat him—but you won’t get much time to enjoy your victory, because his family and underlings will not be happy with you. Do not fight Acatl.

Teomitl: Please fight Teomitl. Not because you’ll win (you won’t) but because he’ll be impressed by your daring and you might actually earn his respect if you last longer than two seconds. (Plus, sometimes he just plain deserves a punch in the face.) If on the other hand you plan to fight him seriously...don’t. Do not. He has friends who will erase you from existence if you go for the kill. Friendly sparring matches only.

Mihmatini: Are you insane? Why would you fight Mihmatini? This girl might look like your average Mexica housewife, but she is the epitome of “looks like a cinnamon roll but can kill you”—and make no mistake about it, if you threaten her loved ones, she will. And if you threaten her, those same loved ones (including the High Priest of the Dead and the Master of the House of Darts) will feed you your own ass. Do not so much as look at Mihmatini funny.

Nezahual: You could fight Nezahual. You’d probably win; he’s more of a lover than a fighter. On the other hand, this teenage asshole is the Revered Speaker of an entire city, so kicking his ass might cause a diplomatic incident. Up to you if you think it’s worth it!

Neutemoc: Ah, yes. Fight the esteemed Jaguar Knight. That will go over well. In all seriousness, Neutemoc kind of deserves it? Yeah, you’ll still lose, but even giving him a bloody nose feels damn good. Do fight Neutemoc, but preferably not in front of his kids.

Ceyaxochitl: Do not. No. Don’t even think about it. Sure, for all her magical power she’s still a middle-aged woman and physically you might win, but emotionally? Imagine the cost.

Tizoc: DEFINITELY fight Tizoc. Please. He’s no warrior, and after being brought back to life he’s got one foot in the grave anyway. Kick his ass. The Empire will thank you.

Quenami: On one hand, when Huitzilopochtli needs sacrifices, Quenami is the guy with the knife. On the other hand, it’s been years since he’s stabbed anything that can fight back, and he definitely deserves to be taken down a peg or ten. Please fight Quenami, ideally in a public space so we can point and laugh at his humiliation.

Acamapichtli: This man can strangle a jaguar. Do not fight Acamapichtli, even though he definitely deserves it. You will lose and then he will destroy your ego with a well-chosen snarky comment.

Chalchiuhnenetl: “Oh, she’s a little old lady,” you think, right before she crushes your mind with her magic. Don’t fight her, even though she definitely should be fought.

Ichtaca: Hasn’t this poor man been through enough? Don’t fight Ichtaca. You’ll win, but you’ve done something bad and should feel bad.

[notapaladin]

against a blood-red sky

Chalchiuhnenetl knows what she wants: power. Her young, idealistic brother Teomitl, destined for greatness, is an excellent way to get it.

Her plans don't work out as well as she'd hoped.

Spoilers for pretty much ALL of Master of the House of Darts, because you’re not telling me she wasn’t goading Teo on behind the scenes. Also on AO3!

-

It takes her a while, but after he returns from the coronation war, Chalchiuhnenetl decides she quite likes her baby brother. She’d discounted him at first—after all, she has many brothers, Tizoc and Axayacatl as shining examples of their general mediocrity—but he is different from the others. His conviction and ambition burns brightly within him. He is strong. Proud. A skilled warrior, even at his young age.

And so, so deliciously easy to manipulate.

She is no longer the fragile girl sold to Moquihuix-tzin’s bedchambers, not after all these years in service to Grandmother Earth. (All the sacrifices—her beauty, her youth, her physical strength—they were as nothing. Nothing compared to power.) She has learned that each man has his lever, his weak spot, where the skin is thinnest and the blood easiest to spill. It takes her only a few private conversations to learn Teomitl’s, though the answer surprises her when she does. A new-married man, still uncertain on where he stands in his wife’s heart, might be sensitive to her lack of respect for him, to her apparent lack of care for his feelings. (For she is the new Guardian of the Duality, and known to have a sharp tongue besides.) A freshly-appointed Master of the House of Darts, so loyal to his country and so determined to lead it to glory, might be infuriated by Tizoc’s utter failure of a coronation war. (For it is a failure, with only forty captives and most of those ill; Axayacatl would be ashamed if he could see what his brother has managed to do with the Empire he handed him.)

Teomitl is sensitive. Teomitl is infuriated. Mihmatini and Tizoc, then, are easy cracks in his armor.

But she listens, smiling at the right times and frowning at others, until she peels back the skin of him to the raw and quivering nerves below.

Acatl. High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, brother to the Guardian Mihmatini, and Teomitl’s teacher in the magical arts. And—so clearly, so disgustingly clearly—the man Teomitl is in love with.

“Acatl-tzin,” Teomitl still calls him, with a sort of tender exasperation that comes close to tugging on the heartstrings she buried when Moquihuix cast her aside. Though he is Master of the House of Darts and therefore at least Acatl’s equal, though there simply isn’t much the man could possibly teach him anymore, he still insists upon addressing him with all due deference and honor. It’s clear to her that he thinks Acatl set the sun in the sky, that he reveres Acatl far, far more than the bond between student and teacher. He spends half his time worrying over the man’s health (pretending he isn’t, of course, but oh how transparent he is) and the other half cursing him for a fool to overwork himself so. (She thinks of telling him that when he is Revered Speaker, he can easily assign the man a dozen personal slaves—but that’s too obvious, even for her.) And under all his noble concern and reverence, like poison glimmering in the shine of a salamander’s skin, lies his certain knowledge that his feelings for Acatl will never be returned. That he will only ever be a student to him, never respected as a man. (Certainly never loved in return, for where can love follow where respect has not led?)

When she realizes it, she laughs until her guards step forward in concern. She waves them off, still chuckling, and permits herself a smile. This will be simpler than she thought.

(No, she’ll still never be an Imperial Consort. But having been the one to set the Revered Speaker on the throne, having his ear while knowing she could remove him just as easily...there’s power in that, too.)

From then on, it starts to fall into place. The spreading plague grants her an opening and she takes it, opening her house in Zoquipan for the quartering of her troops. (Teomitl’s in name, yes, but hers. Hers as long as Toci’s power pulses in her veins.) Teomitl comes with her, wearing gold at his throat and a cloak that is almost turquoise, and they speak long into the night. His doubts shine like cracks in jade, and she leverages them until the stone splinters.

“You know you’ll be a far better Revered Speaker than Tizoc could even dream of.”

“Look at how the boundaries are tearing themselves apart, how our enemies bay at our borders like wolves. I cannot wait for your reign to bring us back together.”

“Acatl will never respect you as a warrior, as a leader—unless you make him. Unless you show him your might.”

There is a minor setback when Acatl finds them and deems it necessary to investigate the situation in person. True, she almost laughs in his face at first—she is older than him, and for all that he can muster the raw power of Mictlan she has had decades more years than him to learn the finesse of her own skills—but before she can crack his ribcage like so many raw eggs Teomitl appears, and for a moment she thinks she will lose when he enters in turquoise and gold to confidently declare Acatl his. (Love, even doomed and one-sided, can be a powerful force in its own right. She should know.)

Then she sees the priest’s face, shuttered and raw-edged and very nearly furious, and she realizes she has nothing to fear. Though she cannot hear their conversation, Teomitl is angry and shaken when he returns to her side, and anger widens the flaws in his jade until her words can slip in like smoke.

“See? He always worries too much, doesn’t he? You must be strong.”

“Of course he doesn’t understand. You told me yourself he’s always hated warriors, always known that you have strengths—experiences—that he could never match.”

“I’m sorry, Teomitl. I suppose you’ll always be a child to him. He’ll never see you as the strong young man you are.”

Young Mihmatini is next to arrive, and that’s even more trivial to deal with. Whereas Teomitl has known and worked with Acatl for years, he and Mihmatini have still barely spent a week together without a chaperone. She is prickly, bold, opinionated, and somehow even worse at delicate diplomacy than her elder brother. Teomitl’s heart is hard as stone by now—as hard as any heart of a true Revered Speaker—and she is near to tears by the time she finally retreats. He’s quiet afterwards, but it’s obvious their exchange bothered him as well.

And so Chalchiuhnenetl steps in, once again the wise, understanding elder sister. “Imagine her face, Teomitl. Imagine how she’ll love you, honor you, when you are Emperor.”

“She’s your wife, and the Guardian besides. She’ll understand.”

“It’s all for the good of the Empire.”

He starts to smile at that, and she knows she’s got him in the palm of her hand. Yes, his rule will be for the good of the Empire. He will not only hold it together where Tizoc is tearing it apart, he’ll lead it on to new heights of glory. His name will spread like smoke, like mist, and she will be behind him every step of the way.

Finally, the hour approaches. The calendar priest they’ve...borrowed is clear; if they strike now, they will achieve their goals. And from a purely practical standpoint, this is the best time for Teomitl to seize his destiny; he has strong warriors behind him, Tizoc has fled the city for fear of the plague, and the clergy—especially Teomitl’s beloved Acatl—are busy with the breach in the boundaries. Teomitl is proud and stubborn, sure that what he is doing is right, and she knows he won’t be dissuaded. Because he is right. Tizoc is a failure, and it is his destiny to rule.

And then she and Teomitl are facing Mihmatini and Acatl, and Acatl—with his fists clenched and his face far too calm for a man who looks like his heart is breaking in two—is tearing through her carefully laid plans like cobwebs with a single sentence.

“I’m asking this as one man to another.”

She sees Teomitl’s face when he speaks, hears his indrawn breath, and knows that her hold over him is slipping; if she doesn’t act now, she’ll lose it entirely. And if he falters—if she allows him to falter—they will never have a better chance. She tells him this, voice cracking with desperation.

“You’re right,” he tells her. “It won’t happen again.”

Triumph.

And then he continues, dashing all her hopes. “But I’ll make it happen. Someday.”

She wants to scream. She thinks she does scream, in her hatred and fury. But it’s too much—he turns and lashes out, Jade Skirt’s power rising like the waters of the lake in flood, and she knows in that moment that she has lost. She has lost, and he will never trust her again.

In the end, she walks away silently. It’s clear she’s misjudged; the ties that bind her brother to Acatl are stronger than any words she could spin.

(Respect has led the way. She wonders, idly, if love will follow.)

[notapaladin]

harmonic refrain, 51-100

More prompt/drabble fills! (the ficathon: three sentences! me: no)

Prompts 1-50 Prompts 101-150

Also on AO3

-

51 acatl/teomitl – sunbeam

Acatl has seen the sun. Brilliant, radiant, scorching. He has stood in the Heartland, the domain of the Southern Hummingbird, and baked to delirium beneath its rays. He knows its heat upon his back, knows the way it soaks into his hair. He hadn’t thought a brighter or more dangerous thing existed, either on earth or in the heavens.

And then Teomitl turns to him on a day where the sky is a flat unrelieved gray, a day where the clouds are threatening to release their burden of water any minute, and smiles.

And Acatl knows he was wrong.

-

52 mihmatini – she wove and she would sing

She’d been doing it since she was ten, but dressing the loom properly still took hours. The actual weaving, though? That, she could do in her sleep. She’d spun the thread herself, spindle humming in its cup while Teomitl watched in fascination. (He’d asked if she wanted any sort of help and looked adorably crestfallen when she’d pointed out that it had taken years for her to get good at it.) Now it was time to make something out of it.

A new cloak, she’d decided. Something with a hood; Teomitl would never admit it, but he did get cold. As the shuttle clacked, sending red thread on its way, she started to sing.

She lost track of time for a while. There was just her hands, and the loom, and the shuttle, and the sunlight streaming down on her head. She’d forgotten how soothing it was simply to sit and work—to not have to be the Guardian of the Duality or to think about magic or politics, but to just make something with her own two hands. Maybe I’ll suggest Teomitl take up some crafts, she thought idly. He could use more hobbies.

Footsteps behind her caught her attention a moment before her husband’s voice sounded over her shoulder. “What are you making?”

She smiled at him. “A surprise.”

Beaming back, he sat down with his own work. And if he neglected it to watch her instead, well. She wasn’t complaining.

-

53 acatl/teomitl – a heart in flames

Oh, he thought, and then again, Oh.

It wasn’t the first time. There had been other moments where he’d looked at Teomitl, at the man who he knew with all his heart would lead the Mexica Empire to glory, and felt the dry and withered thing in his chest catch fire with the knowledge that he loved him. That he’d been an absolute idiot to have ever thought his feelings were platonic. Like a son, he’d said once, but that had ended the moment he’d seen Teomitl on the temple steps with the setting sun turning him to gold. By now, he was almost used to feeling his heart contract when their eyes met.

Almost. Teomitl was sitting quite close, almost touching; each brush of his fingers against Acatl’s thigh felt like a brand. And he’d just turned to him and smiled, continuing their conversation as though nothing at all was amiss. “Don’t you think so, Acatl?”

“Yes,” Acatl whispered, and looked at Teomitl’s mouth, and burned.

-

54 teomitl & chalchiuhnenetl – masks

“Tell me more about this Acatl-tzin of yours.”

“He’s not my—oh, fine.” Ah, her sweet, brave, naive little brother. He can’t resist an opportunity to talk about the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, and he doesn’t know what he’s revealing with each smile and blush and proud Acatl-tzin says...

All she has to do is pat his arm and pour them more chocolate. Talk about how Acatl-tzin seems like an exemplary man, truly, it’s simply a shame that he’ll always see Teomitl as a child. Ah, but that’s too depressing to contemplate—tell her, has Teomitl won any great victories lately? How are things with his new bride? Is their brother still ill? The Heartland? Well, that explains a great deal about everything, if their Revered Speaker is a man already dead. Such a shame. Still, he likely won’t do anything too damaging. They can hope. Ah, of course Teomitl is impatient. She can’t blame him for that. Perhaps it is wise to begin building up his own power, just in case—and yes, his dear elder sister has plenty of ideas.

“Do you truly think this is necessary?” he asks her once.

She imagines herself behind the throne clad in gold, her skirt a single shade off from imperial turquoise.

And she says, “You’re a clever young man. It’s better to be prepared for any eventuality, isn’t it?”

When he nods, she smiles.

-

55 acatl & mihmatini – knots

“Sometimes I’m jealous of your hair,” Mihmatini tells him.

Acatl stares at his little sister in shock. “Why?!” It’s a ridiculous concept. Mihmatini’s hair is arrow-straight and gleams like a polished obsidian mirror, falling to her waist like a waterfall. Well, almost straight; she’s just combed out her marriage braids, and they’ve left kinks behind. But those will soon be gone, and she’ll be back to her usual loveliness. He’s positively unkempt in comparison.

She gestures at him. “It’s so thick and wavy! Like our mother’s. And it looks so nice when you bother to take care of it properly.”

Slowly, he reaches up to tuck an errant curl back behind his ear again. It’s just slightly too short to stay in the white cord holding the rest of his hip-length hair back, not that the cord is more than a token gesture half the time anyway. She is right that it’s something he’s inherited from their mother—the only thing she ever left him other than her scorn—but... “Mihmatini, it breaks combs.”

“It does not!” she huffs at him, and shifts to kneel behind him with her own comb in hand. “Here, let me comb it out for you for once. You’ll see how much better it looks.”

He sighs. There’s really no stopping her once she gets an idea in her head. “Fine,” he mutters as he loosens his hair, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

For a few minutes, it’s actually rather pleasant. And his hair does need the attention. But then—

Snap.

“Ow!”

“...Ah. There went a few of the teeth.”

“I tried to tell you!”

-

56 quenami – blight

The sickness, whatever it is—fever, boils, delirium, death—is spreading, and Quenami doesn’t know how to stop it. (No, that’s a lie. He knows, but he won’t let himself contemplate it. He did not go into the Heartland, humble himself before his god, return Tizoc-tzin to life, just to kill him. He is loyal. Besides...the man isn’t such a bad Revered Speaker, is he? There have been worse. Surely there have been worse.)

(Forty captives. Three hundred dead warriors, and only forty captives, and half of them are dying already.)

(Surely there have been worse.)

He bleeds himself. He sacrifices. He prays. He whispers in dark corridors, marshals his priests, keeps Tizoc-tzin as stable as he can. And he watches more men (women) (children) die, and he hopes he isn’t next.

Magic, says that jumped-up peasant Acatl, not a common plague. He hates to admit it, but the man might be right. At least in that case, it isn’t his responsibility anymore; with Acatl doing what he does best, he’s free to focus on ensuring their Revered Speaker’s survival. The common rabble can die in droves, but the leader of the Mexica Empire must live on.

With the High Priest of Huitzilopochtli by his side, naturally.

-

57 teomitl/acatl – blade

Copper and bronze were useful in their own ways, but they required regular sharpening and maintenance. Not so obsidian, which stayed as sharp as the day it had been flaked off from its core. Underworld obsidian, green-tinged and rippling with magical power, was even sharper.

All this was to say that when Teomitl idly rolled over and picked up one of Acatl’s knives, turning it this way and that, he was acutely aware of how his lover stiffened. He couldn’t blame him, really; wounds made by these blades festered instead of healing, and even a scratch could mean a slow death. Still... “I just wanted a closer look.”

“You’ve seen them before,” Acatl pointed out. There was a rustling that suggested he was propping himself up on one elbow to keep an eye on him.

Worrywart, Teomitl thought with no small amount of affection. “Usually when you’re using them.” The knife he was holding was excellently made, handed down from one High Priest to the next; the edges gleamed like mirrors, and the hilt had been wrapped in white leather cord. The same sort of white leather cord, in fact, that held Acatl’s hair off his face. The overall effect was of something clean and elegant in its simplicity, with nothing ostentatious to distract from its purpose.

“And?” Acatl’s warm breath wafted over his shoulder. “What do you think?”

“They remind me of you.”

-

58 acatl – sate

There are tamales stuffed with duck and fresh greens. There are bowls of stew, fragrant with chilies and herbs.  There are platters of roasted venison in pumpkin sauce and freshly-sliced fruit drizzled with honey. By the sides of everyone’s plates are stacks of warm flatbread baked to golden-brown softness, just the way Acatl likes them.

He’s not allowed love or wealth or glory. But he is allowed this, and so he digs in with abandon.

-

59 acatl/teomitl – the most important question

“Do you trust me?” Teomitl asks him.

Never, Do you love me. Or, Do you want me. The answers to those are so obvious as to be self-evident even with Acatl’s reticence and Teomitl’s general insecurity. But trust? That’s something different. Something much more important than Acatl’s heart or body. It’s a question that requires thought.

Acatl’s decided on his answer long ago.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Teomitl breathes, and draws his sword.

They charge into the fray together.

-

60 acatl & acamapichtli – ritual

It feels strange, Acamapichtli reflects, to be working on a ritual with Acatl that actually doesn’t involve the very fate of the Mexica Empire. At least, not immediately. It’s for the maintenance of the Great Temple, which while certainly vital isn’t about to collapse under their feet.

Not that Acatl seems to realize this, judging by the agitated inky swirls of his magic. Acamapichtli prods him a little too hard to be entirely companionable. (He really can’t help it. Acatl’s just so skinny and easily offended, it’s a constant battle not to put him in a headlock.) “Calm down. We’ve done this dozens of times before.”

“You have,” Acatl mutters.

Acamapichtli smirks. That’s right; he’s been High Priest of Tlaloc for far longer than Quenami and Acatl have served their own patrons. “No pressure, then!”

-

61 acatl & teomitl – risking it

While probably not the stupidest thing Acatl’s ever done, he’s aware that this is up there. Tizoc is so paranoid, so unstable, that even to breathe a word of treason within the palace is to take his own life in his hands. But Teomitl has asked, and this time—without the army at his back, without the adrenaline still racing through his veins—it’s not so desperate. He’s asked because he really wants to know. And, more pertinently, because he wants Acatl’s advice. As a friend.

There’s something very nice about being wanted.

“...What do you think we should do about this?” Teomitl’s asking. This, at the moment, is Tizoc’s plans for a complete refurbishment of the Great Temple, a massive construction project that they can ill afford no matter how much it might please the gods.

Acatl grimaces. “Nothing.”

“But—”

“It’s a stupid idea,” he clarifies, “but it will keep him occupied and not ruining anything else.”

“Until we go off to war again,” Teomitl mutters mutinously.

Acatl takes a moment to study him—the young Master of the House of Darts, keeper of one-fourth of Tenochtitlan’s army, devotee of She of the Jade Skirt, skilled in magic and warfare, currently crunching a handful of peanuts as though they’ve done him an injury. And then he finds himself smiling. “I think you can handle that.”

-

62 teomitl & chalchiuhnenetl – cutting ties

The worst part, Teomitl reflected, was that he���d really thought his elder sister had cared about more than power. That she’d been sincere when she’d patted his shoulder and told him to have faith, it would all work out. That she’d ever once weighed his misgivings as more than an unfortunate attack of morality. (She’d asked about Acatl. About Mihmatini. And he’d been so stupidly, pathetically grateful to have someone to talk to that he’d told her.)

Hatred—at her, at himself—curdled his heart, but he stood in front of her complex in Zoquipan anyway. The guards had their weapons half-drawn. The one on the left (gods, he’d never learned the man’s name) said, “State your business.”

He straightened up to meet the man’s gaze. “I’m here to speak to my sister.”

And warn her never to contact me again.

-

63 tizoc & quenami – unexpected betrayal

Quenami was supposed to be the loyal one. Tizoc had appointed him, after all, and he knew where his power ultimately derived from. He would never do anything to jeopardize that, and that was why Tizoc could trust him. Quenami had helped him to the throne. Had brought him back to life (oh, the other High Priests had helped, but they would have gotten nowhere without Quenami and everyone knew it.) He was very possibly the closest thing the Emperor could have to a friend.

And so Tizoc was smiling as he accepted the bowl of spiced chocolate and raised it to his lips. It had been a dreadfully long time since he hadn’t had to fear poison.

“What do you think, my lord?” Quenami’s voice was soft and smooth as always, a balm to his soul.

He took a deep draft. “Wonderful.” It was wonderful, rich with vanilla and honey and chile. There was an odd spice he couldn’t place, though, so he opened his mouth to ask Quenami what it was—

And then he blinked, spots swimming in his vision. The room seemed to spin before his eyes. The guards, he thought frantically, fetch my guards—but he couldn’t say it, because his tongue was too thick and heavy in his mouth. The cup slid from his useless fingers to smash upon the floor.

“Yes,” murmured Quenami, “it is.”

-

64 teomitl & chalchiuhtlicue – water mirror

“Look at yourself,” She of the Jade Skirt whispers, and Teomitl can do nothing but obey. He is acutely aware of Her presence behind him as he’s been aware of nothing else in his life, even though all She’s doing is standing over his shoulder as he kneels to peer down into Her crystal-clear waters.

He sees—himself. Just himself. There’s his curved nose, his high cheekbones, his dark eyes. His hair is growing out, thick and dark and still too short to do anything with. He doesn’t look like a warrior or a prince or a future Revered Speaker. He just looks...normal. Ordinary. Mediocre, hisses a voice in the back of his head. Mediocre, even with Jade Skirt’s patronage.

He blinks back an unruly tear, and his eyes are jade from lid to lid.

He tilts his head, and an ahuitzotl sitting across from him mirrors the motion.

Over his shoulder, Chalchiuhtlicue smiles.

-

65 teomitl – sacred dance

There are unexpected complications to becoming Revered Speaker. The new septum piercing, for instance, which itches abominably and hurts when he sneezes. The difficulty in finding any actual privacy for longer than an hour. The part where he’s expected to have concubines, which wouldn’t be so bad except that he has no idea what to say to women who are trying so painfully hard to fawn over him. The sycophancy in general, really. Is it too much to ask for honesty from the people around him?

But at the moment, the worst part is that the Revered Speaker is expected to lead sacred dances at certain festivals. And he...well.

“Again,” says his instructor with a sigh as the musicians begin drumming anew.

He has to learn the steps eventually, right?

-

66 mihmatini and her brothers – shared pain is lessened; shared joy increased

Despite her follies, her heartbreak, her frankly terrible choices, Huei had been her sister-in-law. She’d borne Neutemoc five healthy, happy children. And now she was dead, having given herself in sacrifice to Chalchiuhtlicue to escape the judgement of the Underworld, and there was a hole in the air where her place at the table had once been.

Mihmatini knew she wasn’t the only one feeling it. The children had been inconsolable all day; even Necalli, who bid fair to take after his uncle Acatl, was silent and shaky and close to tears. Neutemoc had barely spoken a single word in weeks. Acatl...well, he was always quiet, but now there was an edge to it. He’d tried to save Huei. He’d failed.

Finally, it was too much to take. Carefully, without quite looking at either her siblings or her nieces and nephews, she picked up another serving of now-cold meat and said aloud, “Do you remember when she made these?” Huei, for all her skills in other areas, had never been able to roast anything without charring it to a crisp.

Neutemoc made a face. “Unfortunately yes. Ah, but her baking...”

Sniffling, Mazatl added, “Mama made the best maize cakes.”

That set Necalli and Ohtli off, and even Acatl managed to unbend himself to share his own stories. Huei was still gone. Nothing would change that. But for the moment, she lived on.

-

67 teomitl – something fishy

He is Ahuitzotl; thanks to Chalchiuhtlicue’s favor, the beasts for which he was named are bound tightly to his soul. As much as they’ve saved him in the past—it turns out that even the fiercest fighter is vulnerable to a man-sized blur of teeth and claws that can spring from any source of fresh water—there are occasional downsides to that. He finds it more difficult to keep ahold of his temper when he’s hungry. His hair is frankly unmanageable. (They are, after all, thorny water beasts, referring to their spiky wet fur.) His teeth are sharper than they ought to be, and he keeps biting his tongue or the insides of his cheeks by accident. Sudden bright lights give him headaches.

And he is absolutely, shamefully ravenous for raw fish.

(“Teomitl,” his wife asks, “what are you eating?”)

(He swallows the rest of his still-bleeding meal quickly. “Just a quick snack!” It’s not technically a lie.)

-

68 acatl/teomitl – I will hold you close in a thankful heart

There were so many ways this could have went so badly. Acatl knew them instinctively and could list them off without thinking. But he didn’t, because...because it wasn’t going badly. Because Teomitl was in his arms and in his life, and it was good. Because they were safe together, and both of them intended to keep it that way.

So when Teomitl nuzzled in with a grin of his own and breathed, “Now, what’s put that smile on your face?” Acatl kissed him, and told him why.

Perhaps slightly too effusively, admittedly, because Teomitl went crimson and tackled him back onto the mat, with the end result that they were both extremely late for a planned meeting. It was worth it.

-

69 acamapichtli & acatl – when a cold wind blows it chills you, chills you to the bone / but there's nothing in nature that freezes a heart like years of being alone

Sometimes, Acamapichtli almost felt bad for Acatl.

Not often, mind you. The man had a terrible mixture of stubbornness, arrogance, and naivety that made it positively a pleasure to watch him fume, even if he hadn’t been so frequently at odds with Acamapichtli’s own desires. But when he wasn’t—when they agreed on things, rare as that occasion was—Acamapichtli found himself experiencing something close to pity. He was devoted to his patron as well, but not to the exclusion of all else. He wasn’t completely sure Acatl slept.

“Do you have friends?” he asked one day, unable to keep the incredulity from his voice. “Hobbies? A lover? Anything?!”

Acatl stiffened, drawing his cloak around him. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” he snapped, which meant no. So did the moment’s pause before he added, “And what lover, you know the vows we’ve sworn.”

Ah, right. The one about celibacy. Acamapichtli had forgotten about that. Acatl was so godsdamned virtuous. Or possibly hypocritical, given the way Teomitl followed him around like a puppy. Hmm. “It was a friendly question. You know, it’s not healthy to be so isolated—”

“Haven’t you anything more important to do?!”

Acamapichtli grinned. Oh, this was going to be fun. “Not at the moment, no.”

-

70 teomitl – there are hungers as strong as the wind and tides

There is a thunderstorm brewing out on the lake, whipping the waters to froth and stinging the eyes of anyone foolish to be out in it. Wiser men would be indoors huddled around their hearth, perhaps listening to a singer or reading an improving book.

Teomitl’s never been wise, even with Acatl’s tutelage. He’s left hearths and singers and books behind, and he’s walking out along the canals to the very edge of the city. It would be faster to swim. To let his powerful body and tail carry him through the water, seething in a tide of his fellows, fangs bared to feast on any mortal stupid enough to fall from their boats—

He stops. Closes his eyes. Breathes deeply. Blocks out the high, chittering song of the ahuitzotls in his mind. No. He is a man. He is a man, and he is out here with water soaking into his skin because...because...

Because it called, and he must answer.

He keeps walking.

-

71 acatl/teomitl – slumber

I have duties to complete, he though dully. What is happening out there while I rest? Are they preparing for Cuauhtli’s funeral and consoling Chiltochtli’s family? I should...I should...

“I can hear you thinking,” Teomitl murmured.

Acatl didn’t open his eyes. He was far too tired for that—too tired even to register real surprise that Teomitl, who had walked him home and all but forced him to lay down after Palli had let slip how little sleep he was really getting, was still in the room. He hadn’t expected him to stay. Had been half wondering if he would, but hadn’t expected it. “Mrrm,” he muttered, and buried his face in the cushion.

There was a long, heavy sigh. “Go to sleep. You’ll feel better.”

He was trying. But sleep refused to come. He yawned, shifting position, and felt Teomitl move a moment before  callused fingers smoothed a ticklish lock of hair off his face. That was...nice. It was nice.

(It was more than nice, but he didn’t have the energy to dwell on it.)

Teomitl’s next words were barely audible, as though he feared Acatl might already be asleep. “I’ll be outside.”

“...Stay,” he mumbled. In his cold chambers impregnated with his own residual magic, the sound of another man’s breathing and the heat of his skin nearby was a welcome reminder that he faced only sleep, not death. That the world wouldn’t end when he let himself drop into slumber.

Teomitl stayed.

Acatl slept.

-

72 acamapichtli & tizoc – the backstabbing blade

Their names had been Cuixtli and Ocelotepetl and Cozcatl, Tapachtli and Nextic and Miyahuatl. Dozens of others—no, hundreds—whose names were engraved forever on his heart. All dead. All dying in cages like animals, choking on their own blood and raving with fever, because of his Emperor’s paranoia. They’d relied upon him, and he’d failed them. He won’t fail again.

“I will hold the way open for you,” Mihmatini had said.

“We never had this conversation,” Acatl had muttered.

Acamapichtli closes his eyes, remembers his clergy, and steps into the Emperor’s throne room. He doesn’t need to be a warrior or march at the head of an army. He just needs to kneel at Tizoc’s feet, draw his blade, and leave a single scratch before finding out whether Teomitl’s won all the guards over to his side or not.

Either way, the white-hilted knife of underworld obsidian will do its work.

-

73 acatl & teomitl – night on the rooftop

“Can’t sleep either?”

Teomitl could barely ever sleep, but he wasn’t going to bring that up. Acatl would only worry. So instead he nodded wordlessly, keeping his gaze fixed on the stars wheeling overhead. They were reassuringly faint pinpricks in the night sky.

Acatl didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. He simply hummed thoughtfully as he took a seat next to Teomitl on the flat roof, long legs tucked under the heavy cotton of his cloak. If he sat just a little closer, Teomitl could rest his head on his shoulder.

It was a tempting prospect. Undignified, but tempting.

This is Acatl, he reminded himself. He’s seen me at my worst. He won’t...well, he would judge, but not for this. Not for softness. Not if I...if I...

Ah. Right. This was probably a stupid idea. But he was tired and restless and worried for what the dawn would bring, and he wanted this. He wanted more, but he’d settle for this.

He shifted over, first feeling their bare arms touch and wondering if he was making a mistake—and then Acatl sighed and moved as though to put an arm around his waist, and he gave up all pretenses of hesitance in favor of collapsing into the loose hold. He was right. Acatl’s shoulder was very comfortable. Bony, but comfortable anyway. He wriggled a little, adjusting his position, and Acatl huffed affectionately. “Happy now?”

“Mmm.”

They sat and watched the stars. Whatever the morning brought, they’d face it together.

-

74 acatl & mihmatini – cloudbursts

“It seems to be a nice day out,” Mihmatini said, and cursed them all.

Acatl had been about to agree—had been in the very act of opening his mouth to speak, in fact—when the heavens opened up to drench his brother’s courtyard. His nieces and nephews had to be herded inside, Neutemoc swearing over his now-drenched pipe as he followed them in. “You caused this somehow,” his elder brother muttered.

Mihmatini snorted, making a mock punching gesture. “The Storm Lord brought the rain! I had nothing to do with it.”

The rain drumming on the awning was peaceful even with his siblings’ bickering, as long as he didn’t have to be out in it. There were many things more disagreeable than walking through muddy streets in wet sandals, but he didn’t care to experience any of them. Acatl sighed and closed his eyes.

Maybe he’d take a nap until the rain stopped.

-

75 teomitl & acatl – I wish

For family.

For glory.

For love.

For things to be different.

For his brother to be a good man again.

For his soldiers to last the night.

For the power to protect his people and his nation.

For Acatl to look at him and see him, to view him as a man and not a pathetic child.

For—

“You said things as one man to another. That won’t change, Acatl.”

“No. I guess not.”

For a smile, soft and uncertain and entirely transformative.

For a city bathed in golden light, and a heart so full of rapture he could barely find words to speak.

When he looked back, Acatl was still smiling.

-

76 acatl/teomitl – this love could be bad for us

“We shouldn’t,” Acatl murmured, but it was a token protest and they both knew it. They’d come too far to stop now even if they wanted to.

Teomitl kissed him again, sweet and hungry. When he drew back, his mouth was red and wet as a feeding jaguar’s. “Does that mean you don’t want it?” It sounded sincere, for all that his hands were slipping under the waistband of Acatl’s loincloth and there was a thigh pressed rather insistently between his legs.

I shouldn’t want this, he thought. We both have so many other responsibilities, other duties. You will be my Emperor. But you are the sun of my life, and even though I burn, I throw myself into the fire willingly.

He rolled them both over, pressing Teomitl back down on the mat, and lowered his mouth to his lover’s throat. “Let me show you what I want,” he breathed, and bit sharply enough to sting.

There was no hesitation after that.

-

77 acatl, teomitl & mihmatini – 'til the stars fall from heaven

The stars were falling again.

It was Tizoc’s fault. Of course it was Tizoc’s fault; he’d botched the restoration of the Great Temple, and She of the Silver Bells had broken free from Her prison for revenge upon the Mexica people. Star demons were plummeting by the dozens out of a noonday sky to join her. One would have been bad enough. This was a massacre.

The Duality House was safe—for now. Acatl didn’t know how long it would last. Mihmatini and Teomitl were doing an admirable job of defending it and the innocents huddled inside, but it took a High Priest—or several—to put paid to a furious goddess. His hands did not shake as he strapped another knife to his hip. He was born for this.

“Are you leaving already?” Teomitl was standing in the doorway. He looked exhausted, blood and ichor splattered across his armor, but his eyes were clear.

Acatl nodded. “Be careful while I’m gone.”

Teomitl clasped his arm. “You too.”

“I’m going off to fight a goddess. It’s not a careful occupation!”

Now Teomitl was almost smiling. “I know.”

“Which is why I’m coming with him.”

Mihmatini should have been on the battlements directing her priests, flinging all the spells she knew at her disposal. Instead she was standing just behind her husband in quilted cotton armor, a long smear of blood across one cheek. Her eyes were cold and hard.

Acatl opened his mouth. Remembered exactly what his little sister was like. Closed his mouth again.

And so the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli and the Guardian of the Duality went to imprison a deity.

-

78 teomitl & acatl  – homework help

Teomitl loved his lessons with Acatl-tzin. The man was patient and intelligent and never seemed to mind in the least when he couldn’t sit still. “As long as your mind is paying attention,” he’d said drily, “I don’t care what your body’s doing.” He was very possibly the best teacher in the world.

His other tutors...well, not so much.

“What are you working on?” Acatl asked. He’d shown up a little early for their planned lesson.

Grimacing, Teomitl set the stick down and gestured at the equations he was trying to work out in the dust of his courtyard before committing them to paper. Key word: trying. “Cuauhtepetl-tzin assigned me these math problems,” he muttered. He was terrible at math. It didn’t even need to be said; there was no way Acatl could miss it. This was going to take him hours.

Acatl sat down on the bench next to him, frowning at the numbers. After a long moment, he asked, “...Do you want some help with them?”

His face felt like it was on fire, but he nodded.

It really did go faster with help, at least. And unlike him, Acatl was good at math.

-

79 acatl/teomitl – breaking tradition

The army isn’t going off to war this year. Following Tizoc’s failure of a coronation war and the resulting horrific plague, they simply can’t afford to. Acatl had thought Teomitl would be angry about it—every war, after all, is a chance to show their strength and earn further glory—but instead he finds the man smiling when he shares the news.

“You actually want to stay here for the winter?” Acatl can’t keep a note of incredulity out of his voice.

Teomitl shrugs, almost carelessly—but then he links their fingers together, and that’s not careless at all even if his ears are pink and he’s not making eye contact as he answers, “I do miss you a great deal while I’m gone, you know.”

Now he’s blushing as well. This facet of their relationship is still so terribly new and tender; it’s one thing to be told (and enthusiastically shown) how much Teomitl adores and respects him when they’re together, but another thing entirely to learn he’s missed even when they’re apart.

“Well,” he says, and clears his throat. “This year, you won’t have to. Perhaps—we can celebrate your birthday together for once?” It’s always fallen just after the army leaves, and so he’s never had the chance. He rather likes the idea.

Judging by the way Teomitl lights up, he likes it too.

-

80 acatl/teomitl – choice

Acatl woke up one morning and realized, disagreeably, that he was in love.

That doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it, he told himself. I’m a busy man. I’ve taken vows. And even if I hadn’t, this is entirely unsuitable. Indeed, it was difficult to imagine a more unsuitable object for his involuntary affections. No matter that the man smiled like the dawn and made his heart feel like warm honey—Teomitl was his sister’s husband, a dozen years his junior, and the heir apparent to the Mexica Empire. If he thought of Acatl at all, it was probably with brotherly tolerance. And that was leaving aside whatever his sister would think about it. Gods, it would break her heart.

“I think my husband is in love with you,” she informed him, and he spat his drink across the table.

When he could breathe again, he wheezed, “What?!”

She blinked. “He hasn’t been subtle.”

Well. He was still busy. This was still a bad idea. He definitely still shouldn’t be contemplating taking any sort of action.

But when Teomitl showed up at his door red-faced and flustered, mumbling something about having talked to Mihmatini earlier, Acatl invited him in.

-

81 ceyaxochitl & mihmatini – accidental fix-it

A poisoned newt. Ceyaxochitl had almost died because of a poisoned newt. If she’d been hungrier that day, or if she hadn’t gotten lunch from a street vendor earlier, she would have died in slow, lingering agony as paralysis crept in from her limbs to her lungs and then to her heart. But the server had dropped the tray, and as she’d looked at the mess she’d decided that she really wanted a cup of maguey sap instead. Thank the Duality for Acatl and Teomitl, who’d uncovered the attempt when one of her priest’s dogs had gotten sick off the refuse. And thank the Duality that there had been no attempts since.

But that didn’t mean she could get out of training up her successor, so on a particularly good day she sat down with Teomitl’s betrothed, set her cane across her lap, and asked, “How would you feel about becoming the Guardian of the Duality after me?”

Mihmatini looked first at her and then at her cane, and then said—very politely—“No thank you.”

She’d expected that. Coolly, she brought up her other major point. “No one would be able to stop you from marrying who you wished. Not even the man who thinks he’s going to be the next Emperor.”

“You don’t think the council will elect Tizoc-tzin?”

Without meaning to, she found herself smiling. Ah, such a bright young girl. “I think even if they do...well, we can find a way around him.”

Or through him. Men were so fragile, after all. Young Teomitl had all the bravery and intelligence his elder brother lacked, and was far easier to keep in check. When she and Mihmatini worked together, what couldn’t they achieve?

-

82 acatl – the sound of falling sand

Mictlan is dry dust against his bare feet, the soft hush of sand and the muffled crack of old bones. He is hollow, scraped raw by the cold wind. He feels like a corpse himself.

But this is his lot, and so he opens himself up to it. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the nonsmell of the place; for an instant, he feels as though his skin has sloughed off like a moth’s cocoon. There is no joy here, no satisfaction in a job well done. There is only a deep and final peace for kings and slaves alike.

Acatl walks through ashes and the broken remnants of obsidian knives, wades through rivers of blood and pus, to fall on bruised knees before his lord’s throne.

-

83 teomitl, acatl & mihmatini – i'm pretty sure i'm worthless / if i can't be of service

“I’m fine,” she says. “I don’t need your help,” she says. And Teomitl remembers how they’d tied his cloak to her blouse (his heart to her heart), remembers the flare of magic that meant danger, and bites his lip, saying nothing. Was I not supposed to protect you, Mihmatini?

“You need to be patient,” he says. “We can weather this,” he says. And Teomitl remembers a knife at his throat (a garrote at his throat), remembers the poisonous hatred in his brother’s eyes, and bites his lip, saying nothing. You guard the whole of the Fifth World, but who guards you, Acatl-tzin?

There’s nothing he can do. He’s useless. The only thing he can do is sit and watch and wait as his brother spreads calamity throughout his Empire, threatening the people he loves. The people he gave his heart to, who don’t even seem to know that he’d do anything for them.

“You can save them,” she says. “You can save the Fifth World,” she says. And Teomitl remembers a frantically beating heart (a slow and faltering heart), remembers his soldiers dying in the mud because his brother is unfit to rule, and he looks down at his sister.

And he says, “I will.”

-

84 acatl/teomitl – snowed in together

“It’s...snowing,” Teomitl had announced in disbelief, and Acatl hadn’t thought anything of it. Snow was rare but not unheard of, deep in the dry season as they were; it would probably melt by morning. He’d tugged Teomitl gently back to the mat, and their activities there had kept them wonderfully warm.

That had been two days ago, and the snow hadn’t stopped. Acatl and his priests were all getting sick of shoveling the stuff, and Teomitl had been so determined to be of use to them that he’d injured his shoulder and was grimly huddled next to a brazier in case the heat would help. As Acatl stumbled in on half-frozen feet, he looked up to inform him, “I’m going to start buying those closed shoes from the northern traders if this keeps up. This is ridiculous.”

“I know,” Acatl grumbled, and sat on the other side of the brazier in a bid to thaw himself out. “If it doesn’t stop soon, I’m not sure you’ll be able to get back to your own mat.”

Teomitl blinked, and then smiled sweetly. “What are you talking about? It’s right over there. And you certainly make me forget all about this weather.”

For all that they’d done on that mat, Acatl couldn’t help but blush. “I’m sure you’d want to be back in your own space eventually.”

“Mihmatini talks in her sleep,” Teomitl pointed out. And then he smirked. “But she doesn’t put her cold feet on me in the middle of the night, so...”

“I’ll show you cold feet!”

Teomitl didn’t quite squeak when Acatl pressed his now-bare foot against his thigh, but it was a near thing.

-

85 teomitl – insomnia

It was far, far past midnight, but Teomitl couldn’t sleep. He’d been up since just before dawn. Exhaustion tugged at his limbs, but stubbornly refused to drag him under.

Slowly, mechanically, he dressed himself. Perhaps a walk would help. If nothing else, it might distract him. And if he wound up seeing the dawn from the other end...well. That wouldn’t be so bad. It reminded him just a bit of Acatl-tzin.

I wonder what he’s doing right now. Hopefully he was sleeping. Gods, please let him be sleeping. The night air was slipping through Teomitl’s cloak, and even his tendency to run warm wasn’t saving him from the chill. Acatl-tzin would feel it even worse.

He stepped out into his courtyard, gazing up at the moon. He wondered if the rabbit up there was lonely, too.

-

86 acatl/teomitl – fluffy hair

Teomitl was growing his hair out. He’d started after being elevated to Master of the House of Darts, but that had been nine months, a war, a plague, and a coup attempt ago. Acatl hadn’t been able to take the time to really notice. Now that he was, he couldn’t stop. It was thick and coal-black, still at the spiky stage, and looked astonishingly soft. His fingers itched. He wouldn’t appreciate it, Acatl told himself. I shouldn’t.

But then there was a summer day in Teomitl’s courtyard, just the two of them, and Teomitl had been moved from sullen anger to a faint smile by his words (“I have faith in you,” he’d said, and known it for the truth) and then Teomitl had given him a look, soft and hopeful, and—

And Acatl reached out and ruffled his hair.

He snatched his fingers away in the next instant as Teomitl stiffened, already bracing himself for huffy indignation. The man had absolutely no sense of humor when he thought he was being belittled, and Acatl couldn’t blame him.

But Teomitl wasn’t angry. He was, in fact, staring at Acatl in utter bewilderment.

“Sorry,” Acatl muttered, knowing there wasn’t really a defense for his actions. It had been so soft under his palm.

And then Teomitl started to grin. “If it’s you doing that, I don’t mind at all. I’d say you’ve more than earned it.”

Acatl’s heart was beating faster than he was used to. Resolutely pushing aside any thoughts of what it might mean—he could examine that later when Teomitl wasn’t looking at him like that—he tweaked a stray lock back into place. “There. It’s better.”

“At least until you mess it up again,” Teomitl teased.

Now, that was a challenge. Acatl planted his hand on top of Teomitl’s head, but before he could follow through on the implied threat he realized how Teomitl was smiling at him, a soft light in his eyes. His heart was hammering fit to escape his chest. Slowly, his hand slid through close-cropped black hair to rest at the base of Teomitl’s neck instead. He could—but he shouldn’t—but he wanted—

Teomitl let out a long sigh and leaned in.

This, too, was soft.

-

87 acatl/teomitl & quenami – proof

The worst part, Quenami thinks, is that he doesn’t have proof. Oh, he has plenty of evidence—Acatl and Teomitl are in each other’s presence constantly, Acatl is the only one who can rein in the brat’s temper, there are bruises and marks on both their bare skins that he knows Acatl can’t have gotten in a fight and he highly doubts Mihmatini would put on her husband (though he could be wrong; she seems like the sort to be domineering), he has seen Acatl seethe in fury when Teomitl is threatened—but none of that constitutes actual proof. Even Tizoc-tzin isn’t paranoid enough to think two brothers-in-law enjoying each other’s company means something untoward is going on.

But there is. Acatl has shown up to meetings with ornaments in his hair and a telling hitch in his step. His spies in the Duality House say that Teomitl rarely spends the entire night on his wife’s mat, and can often be seen making his way through the Sacred Precinct in the predawn hours with a distinctly smug expression. Someone in the markets has been buying a great deal of avocado oil.

If he can only catch them at it, he can take them both down. Tizoc-tzin’s reign and his own power will be assured. But Tizoc-tzin is weakening, and he is running out of time.

And then one day, he runs out entirely.

It is a bright spring day when Tizoc-tzin dies and he must entrust the Emperor’s body to Acatl, and no sooner does he perform that unfortunate duty when Teomitl locks eyes with him over his brother’s corpse. “Finally,” he says with a note of triumph.

Quenami is prepared for death. Teomitl’s always hated him, after all. He is not prepared for the man to step over to Acatl, lift his skull mask out of the way, and kiss him full on the mouth in front of half the palace and the gods themselves.

(Judging by the way he goes scarlet and hisses “Teomitl!” under his breath, neither is Acatl. It’s a small balm.)

-

88 nezahual & teomitl – hot springs

It’s good to be Revered Speaker. Nezahual has beautiful concubines, the riches of a kingdom, and the leisure to enjoy both. And, just as importantly, plenty of opportunity to spread his good fortune around.

Not that Teomitl seems to appreciate it. He’s agreed to join Nezahual in the natural hot springs connected to the royal baths, but judging by the way he’s been huddled against the edge nursing a bottle of pulque for an hour he clearly isn’t enjoying himself. He’s not even looking at the dancers in their gauze blouses and near-transparent cloaks.

Nezahual reaches over and splashes him just to get his attention. “Don’t you ever relax?”

Teomitl splutters, wiping water away from his face to glare balefully at him. “With you here? Of course not.”

He grins as a thought occurs to him. “...Maybe I ought to extend an invitation to Acatl-tzin as well. I’m sure he’d enjoy the entertainment I picked out for us.” Granted, the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli is the most staid person he knows, but there are singers and poets he probably wouldn’t be offended by. Probably.

Now Teomitl’s turning red. “He would not,” he growls, just as one of the dancers does something with his hips that makes him practically choke on his own spit.

Oh, this is better than what he’d had planned. “Have you asked?”

“I am not having this conversation with you,” he says stiffly, and pointedly knocks back the rest of his cup.

Nezahual sighs and shakes his head, relaxing against the edge of the springs. He’ll simply enjoy himself on his own, then.

-

89 acatl – truth is a violent force

He is not nice. He is rarely kind, though he tries to be. What he is—what all priests for the Dead should be—is honest. In death, there is no room for lies or trickery. A corpse has already given up its secrets, and a soul will soon be beyond any mortal concerns. Acatl, as High Priest, must be the same.

He must.

But that means he can no longer lie to himself either, no matter how much he might wish to.

“What do you think of Tizoc?”

“He killed the clergy of Tlaloc, as surely as if he cast the spell himself.”

“And you think he should rule, until such time as he dies?”

A deep breath. A single heartbeat. And then, knowing he speaks truth even as the words fall like lead on his tongue, even as it dooms him for treason—

“No.”

-

90 teomitl/acatl – like a soldier to war

The unfortunate thing about the armor of the Master of the House of Darts was that the aforementioned Master of the House of Darts couldn’t actually put it on himself. He simply wasn’t flexible enough to reach the ties on his own back. Normally there were slaves to help him, but this morning was special.

This morning there was Acatl, who’d soothed the sting of his ritual bloodletting with kisses and joined him for a bath that had only not gotten them extremely distracted because it was frankly too cold to get up to anything interesting. Who was even now smoothing the feathers of his quilted cotton suit so that they lay flat and gently tweaking his headdress so the plumes fell correctly. Who’d stared at him in actual surprise when Teomitl had shown up the night before with his gear, as though there was any question of them not taking the chance for one last night together before he went off to another campaign.

Warm fingers grazed his back as Acatl tightened the knot, and he couldn’t suppress a shiver even as he grinned. “So, what do you want me to bring you from the Mixtec lands?”

Acatl was silent for a moment. Teomitl wondered what he’d ask for. He always said he never needed anything, but he’d seemed pleased with the gifts of knives and codices and interestingly shaped rocks. Maybe I’ll bring him a new chocolate cup, he mused. The one he uses is so plain.

Finally his lover said simply, “Yourself, safe and sound.”

Teomitl’s face went hot. “I—you—” He started. I can’t promise that. You can’t just say that. If you keep being so sweet and sincere, I won’t even want to leave.

He heard Acatl chuckle behind him a moment before soft lips brushed the nape of his neck. “I have faith in you,” he whispered. “Go and bring us glory.”

-

91 acatl/teomitl – what happens in texcoco stays in texcoco

The first time they’d been to Texcoco, they’d been fleeing for their lives from then-false accusations of treason. Now they are here officially, as honored guests, and the experience couldn’t be more different. There are singers and musicians to entertain them, lavish feasts arranged for them to bask in the bounty of Nezahual-tzin’s kingdom.

And there is only one room for the two of them. Acatl is very, very aware of that single room, with two mats laid out side by side. He’s even more aware of it when he comes in on their first night to see Teomitl sprawled lazily out on one with his cloak spread underneath him, long legs splayed in a way that draws Acatl’s eye inevitably to the fact that loincloths hide absolutely nothing. His mouth is suddenly almost too dry to talk, but he forces out, “You look comfortable.”

The look Teomitl gives him should by all rights set something on fire, it’s that heated. “It’s a comfortable mat,” he says, with the edge of a wicked smile curling his lips. “You should join me.”

He should do no such thing. But they’re in a strange land, far from anyone who would judge them, and so Acatl drops to the mat.

Whether this will hold when they return home, he can’t say. But for tonight—and every night until they leave—he’ll let himself indulge.

-

92 acatl – stressed depressed and doing my best

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep. He thought he might have felt a flicker of real joy a few weeks ago, but it had been gone so quickly he hadn’t had time to dwell on it. There was just so much else for him to do. Funeral rites here, vigils there, being summoned even from the scant snatches of sleep he managed to grab by the need to put down monsters that were still cropping up because he’d asked Teomitl to wait...

He closed his eyes and slumped against the inner wall of his own courtyard, taking a deep breath. Half an hour. Storm Lord strike him, give him just half an hour where he could rest.

“Acatl-tzin?!”

One of his priests, frantic. He could smell fresh blood.

Gritting his teeth, he straightened up. It was time for him to do his duty again.

-

93 acatl, neutemoc & mihmatini – siblings

There were certain advantages to a large age gap between yourself and your youngest sister. For one thing, it meant that when she was trying to cozy up with the man who intended to court her, you had both the fuel and the obligation to share embarrassing childhood stories. Acatl and Neutemoc may not have spoken for several years, but when Mihmatini started talking about her calmecac training—Teomitl hanging on her every word—they exchanged looks. It was time.

Neutemoc’s grin split his face. “Did she ever tell you about the time she tried to climb a cactus to get at the fruit when she was eight...?”

“Neutemoc!”

“...She didn’t.” To give him credit, Teomitl was clearly trying not to smile. Unfortunately, he wasn’t trying hard enough. “What happened?”

Mihmatini glared viciously at her brothers. “You’re both horrible,” she muttered.

Acatl reflexively winced, but Teomitl seemed determined to allay the tension in the room before anyone got anything thrown at them. He gave Mihmatini’s hand a squeeze and said, “It sounds very brave of you. Maybe a little foolish, but I’m sure I did worse things when I was eight. At least you never tried to pet an ocelot.”

“You what,” said Mihmatini and Acatl simultaneously, which at least did derail the conversation from Mihmatini’s childhood gluttony in favor of Teomitl’s complete lack of self-preservation. And it made Teomitl laugh, which in Acatl’s view was always a plus.

-

94 teomitl & neutemoc – found family

Teomitl has many siblings who share his blood, but none of them have ever really felt like his brothers or sisters. He was the youngest, the spare, the hanger-on. The one whose birth killed his mother. It’s not particularly conducive to a good family relationship in the viper’s den that is the Imperial Palace.

But then he meets Acatl and his family. Mihmatini, who has the courage of eagles. Mazatl, endlessly curious. Necalli, grave and careful. Ohtli and Atoyatl, who are astonishingly clever for their age. Ollin is too young to have much of a personality yet but he smiles at Teomitl anyway, which is adorable. And Neutemoc, the children's father, who is...well. Teomitl’s never met a man who wants to sit in silence with him while they go over their armor, or discuss entirely hypothetical battle strategies over dinner. Acatl is wonderful in other ways, but the affairs of warriors visibly make his teacher’s eyes glaze over and he doesn’t want to put him through that.

Neutemoc, on the other hand, listens. He has ideas. He’s teaching Teomitl how to put together a macuahuitl from scratch. He is, in short, a far better brother to him than his own ever were, for all that his relationship with Acatl is strained. (And for all that Teomitl privately thinks Acatl was in the right; if the rest of his family couldn’t see how amazing Acatl was, that was their own fault.) He’s never once made Teomitl feel unwelcome in his home or in his family’s lives.

“Teomitl!” screams Mazatl when she sees him, sprinting across the courtyard so he can pick her up and swing her around. Both of them laugh; in the background, Neutemoc and Acatl crack fond smiles.

“It’s good to see you,” Neutemoc says, and Teomitl’s heart is light for what still feels, even now, like the first time.

He does want to marry Mihmatini, regardless of how much the court fights him on it. But even if he didn’t—even if he wasn’t willing to go to war for that—there’s nothing that would make him give this up.

-

95 acatl/teomitl – secret rooms and corridors

“I got them to make me a key,” Teomitl says, and grins.

Are you insane, Acatl wants to say. Do you have any idea what Tizoc-tzin would do to you if he found out?

He does say that last part, but with one thing and another—it’s probably not the worst week of his life, but it’s certainly a strong contender—he actually manages to forget entirely about the passageway through Tlalocan Teomitl’s managed to hold open, and it’s only months later he’s reminded about it at all.

Granted, at the moment he is, Teomitl’s no longer the only one who’d be dead if Tizoc-tzin found out what either of them had done. Are doing on a regular basis, in fact; he’s still catching his breath, brain pleasantly fuzzy, when Teomitl murmurs, “You should stay a little longer.”

He heaves a sigh. Teomitl’s fingers are tracing a meaningless pattern over his chest and the last thing he ever wants to do is leave this mat, but he doesn’t have a choice. When they’re in Teomitl’s palace quarters, he can’t afford to linger. “You know I can’t. If I’m caught here without a reason...”

Teomitl lifts his head. “Don’t you remember? There’s a faster way out.”

“Beg pardon?” Nothing occurs to him. Possibly that’s because Teomitl still has a leg thrown over his hip.

“That tunnel you scolded me for making?” His lover’s wicked smile probably shouldn’t stir his blood so soon. “I’ve made a few improvements. There’s a side passage that lets out near my quarters.”

He swallows. Teomitl knows what he’s doing, but Tlalocan is still dangerous. On the other hand, the chance of a few more hours in his arms is tempting enough that he wants to risk it, even though... “I wasn’t scolding you,” he huffs. “I was worried for you. You know I loved you even then.”

Teomitl blinks at him. “You were...oh. Oh, Acatl.”

Then he surges up and kisses him, and Acatl knows he’ll definitely be making use of that tunnel later. Anything for more of this.

-

96 acatl – different time period au

Outside there was the low hum of passersby and the snort and stamp of horses. The saloon had just opened for business, adding its own din of shouting cowboys and the calls of working girls. The windows had been flung open in a desperate bid for any sort of breeze, but it wasn’t working very well.

Acatl grimaced and straightened up from the corpse he was laying out. As much as he hated to admit it, maybe it was time for a break. A short one. Miss Alvarez (age 21, stab wound, perpetrator yet unknown) would understand if he at least paused for a drink of water. But the pump was outside, and outside was loud.

Nothing for it. He washed his hands quickly, rolled his sleeves down, and stepped out into the sunset night. The saloon directly across from his funeral parlor was already bustling, gamblers and tradesmen alike spilling in and out of its swinging doors. They looked as though they were having fun. As he watched, a young man on a black gelding trotted up to the hitching post and dismounted in a smooth motion that set his bright orange poncho swirling. Acatl couldn’t help but stare a moment. There was something terribly familiar about that aquiline nose...

“Hey, our little prince is here! Teomitl, what’ve you been doing with yourself?”

Teomitl was huffing at the gambler who’d waved to him—something about needing a drink before work—but Acatl wasn’t listening. Teomitl. Their town wasn’t large, and their mayor made frequent rounds with his wife and children. And his younger brother, who was glancing back over his shoulder in Acatl’s direction with something like surprise on his face.

The gambler smirked as he saw where he was looking. “That’s our coroner. Don’t bother inviting him in; man’s never darkened this doorway in his life. Heard he usedta be a priest—he sure does act like it!”

Acatl flinched. It was true, but that didn’t mean he wanted it bandied about. But Teomitl didn’t look judgemental; instead he turned to Acatl and nodded politely, visibly dismissing the gambler with a sort of inborn arrogance that wasn’t surprising at all. Annoying, but not surprising. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been looking for you.”

A cold chill ran down his back. Suddenly and irrationally, he wished he was wearing his gun. It was a cheap six-shooter, but it would do for self-defense. “...Why?”

Teomitl’s gaze flicked from side to side before returning to Acatl’s face. His spurs jingled as he stepped forward, the sound almost covering his low voice. “I might have some information for you regarding Miss Alvarez. And the other women.”

Acatl sucked in a sharp breath. Because Miss Alvarez wasn’t the only woman who’d been killed recently, but Teomitl had been in the city for the past month so there was no way he’d have known that, unless... “Did Ceyaxochitl send you?” At Teomitl’s sharp nod, he grimaced. The old woman had gotten him away from the church in El Paso, saying that he could do more good out here. Ever since then, she’d made a habit out of offering her “help” just when he didn’t want it.

Well, there was no stopping it now. He nodded politely and motioned to the pump in the street. “I’ll draw us some water. We can talk inside.”

-

97 acatl/teomitl & acamapichtli – unreliable narrator

“How dare you,” Acatl snapped. “He’s my former student—his wife is my sister, the Guardian of the Duality! You cannot possibly be suggesting that he or I would even contemplate such things.”

Acamapichtli frowned thoughtfully for a long moment, but finally he conceded the point. “You have always been sickeningly self-righteous. I confess I thought the rumors far-fetched.”

Acatl drew himself up to his full height and adjusted the fall of his cloak so it looked a bit less rumpled. It was something of a lost cause. “Keep thinking that. And if you spread them any further, we will have words.”

And then he stalked off, back stiff. The nerve of Acamapichtli! At least the way he’d tied his cloak did an admirable job of hiding the love bites on his collarbones.

-

98 quenami – visions

The peyotl, the teonanacatl. The copal incense. The bloody paper burning in the brazier. Cacao and herbs and sour, scorching pulque. Quenami sat in a room that had never known sunlight and took it all in. He knew no pain, no want, no time.

The pounding of drums.

The rolling of thunder, close enough that he felt it in his kidneys.

The staccato beat of hooves—a herd of deer? But strange, giant deer without antlers.

Ships larger than any he’d ever seen before, with snow-white cotton stretched above them.

Sallow, pale-faced men in strange clothing, speaking a tongue he didn’t recognize.

A Tlaxcallan nobleman smiling coldly.

Blood. Blood. So much blood. The roofs of the houses were caving in, and the bed of Lake Texcoco was cracked and dry, and a single shattered spear lay forgotten in the dust, and—

There was a horrible retching noise. It took him a moment to realize he was the one making it, but fortunately his underlings were quicker and less...impaired than he was, so there was a basin in front of him before he ruined the arrays drawn onto the floor.

“What did you see, Quenami-tzin?”

He grimaced, wiping his mouth. “I must speak with the Emperor.”

Tizoc wouldn’t be happy.

-

99 acatl/teomitl – how their story will be told centuries later

From the pen of Ixtlilxochitl, 50 years after the Night of Victory

Now in his youth Ahuitzotzin had been tutored in magic by Acatzin who was High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, and took that man’s sister Mihmatinitzin for his first wife though their family was of humble origin. It is a widespread and common opinion that he held both of them in equal esteem, for often was he seen to clasp Acatzin in his arms and call him the best of men, while in the same breath praise Mihmatinitzin for her power and great beauty. Acatzin was known to be a great lover of justice and temperance, even to the extent of arguing with his Emperor, but Ahuitzotzin always heeded his counsel when he would heed nothing else. Alone among the noblemen, he was allowed to call Ahuitzotzin by his birth name of Teomitzin.

Ahuitzotzin was sorely injured in the great flood of Tenochtitlan, taking a wound to the skull that kept him from battle for the rest of his reign. While he recuperated, Mihmatinitzin and Acatzin guarded the Empire. Many say that he would have died if Acatzin had not pled with Chalchiuhtlicue to spare him. Others say that so desperate was Acatzin to save him that he fought with the goddess himself. All saw Ahuitzotzin’s namesakes leap upon and devour Alvarado, so I think the former to be more likely.

As for Acatzin, he lived to be over seventy years of age and was still hale and healthy when he sacrificed himself on the Night of Victory, fueling the spell which turned back the Castilians. Ahuitzotzin died upon that same night, fighting valiantly to the last despite the lasting effects of his old wound. He was succeeded by his son Cuauhtemoctzin.

From assorted museum plaques in the Sacred Precinct, 500 years after the Night of Victory

String of silver owl beads once owned by Cicuacen Acatl, High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli 1479-1520 (b. ~1450).

Silver pectoral of an owl flanked by two spiders, the reverse bearing the name-glyph Teomitl, once owned by Cicuacen Acatl, High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli 1479-1520 (b. ~1450).

Painted wooden comb carved with a bat motif, once owned by Cicuacen Acatl, High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli 1479-1520 (b. ~1450).

Painted clay cup bearing a motif of reeds and water birds, donated from the grave goods of Emperor Ahuitzotl (1487-1520, b. ~1463) by his descendants.

Fragmented, fire-damaged codex page purported to be love poetry written by Emperor Ahuitzotl (1487-1520, b. ~1463).

Carved stone stele depicting Cicuacen Acatl and Emperor Ahuitzotl upon the Night of Victory. They are holding hands.

-

100 teomitl – just do the next right thing

There is a way to dig himself out of this chasm he’s fallen into, and it starts like this.

“I brought you lunch.”

“Talk to me, I’m listening.”

“Do you mind if I sit and watch you work?”

“My lord, I was thinking...about Tlatelolco...”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

He’s still not sure if he’s doing it right; he came so close, so horrifyingly close, to destroying what he loves. But little by little, the fences he’s broken seem to be mending. Acatl is happy to see him even when he doesn’t come bearing food. (He still does, because the gods know that the man needs it.) Their relationship with Tlatelolco is finally improving. (He might have to marry one of their princesses, but he hopes it doesn’t come to that. The last thing he needs is another wife to potentially disappoint.) And Mihmatini...

She sings sweetly as she weaves, and even though it’s a love song it sounds like a victory hymn.

[notapaladin]

Chalchiuhnenetl: Okay, we can't tell Acatl-tzin.

Teomitl: You want me to lie to Acatl-tzin?

Chalchiuhnenetl: Why, is that a problem?

Teomitl: No.

[notapaladin]

Teomitl: Do you wanna start a revolution with me?

Chalchiuhnenetl, checking her watch: Sure, I've got nowhere to be until 5 anyway.

[notapaladin]

Chalchiuhnenetl: I don’t want to control everything! I just want people and events to mold to my desire.

[notapaladin]

harmonic orchestra (the teocatl edition)

so, I refuse on principle to wedge all these mini-fills into their own separate posts on here because they’re all so SHORT, but I can and will organize them loosely by theme.

Have the teocatl ones! You can also read them on AO3.

-

They sit on the steps of the Great Temple and watch the sun go down, and Acatl looks sidelong at him (golden in the sunlight, gold as the imperial regalia) and thinks, There is my future Emperor.

Teomitl's promised to be patient, to bide his time—to let Tizoc-tzin reign a few more years, no matter how cruel and craven the man is—and Acatl wonders, even now, if he can trust him or if he'll spend those years looking over his shoulder, praying that his former student's ambition doesn't break the Empire apart.

Then Teomitl turns and smiles at him—turns and, gods, takes his hand—and he decides that, for once in his life, he'll take the risk.

-

No matter how much he loves Acatl (gods, more than he thought it was even possible to love anyone), Teomitl has to admit there are...certain downsides to being intimately acquainted with the High Priest for the Dead.

"You know," he grumbles, "just because you deal with corpses all day doesn't mean your hands have to be as cold as the grave.”

“Sorry,” Acatl mutters with a wince—they’ve only just seen each other after too long a time apart, and now Teomitl supposes he’s sort of ruined the mood.

Well, if he’s ruined it, it’s his responsibility to fix it. “Come here, love. I'll warm them for you."

-

“If anyone’s earned the right to keep calling me by my name, it’s you.”

Acatl blinks, and blushes, and has to avert his eyes. “You are my Emperor now,” he manages.

Ahuitzotl—no, no, he is Teomitl, he will always be Teomitl to him—smiles, radiant in gold and turquoise and jade, and takes his hand. “But you still love me, don’t you?”

“...I do...Teomitl-tzin.”

As he knew it would, the honorific makes his beloved flop theatrically backwards on his mat with a groan, and the tension breaks. One day, he muses, he really should ask why Teomitl hates when he calls him that, but for the moment he’ll pull him close, and kiss him, and reassure him that yes, he is loved very much.

-

The carved obsidian takes the form of one of Quetzalcoatl's feathered serpents, with its fanged head swallowing the hilt and the feathers picked out in delicate spines along the edges; it was dug up from Teotihuacan centuries ago, and it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He can't imagine ever using it in combat.

Teomitl presses it into his hands, face red, and mutters, "You said you wanted practical gifts, didn't you? I thought you'd—well. I thought this would please you—unless it doesn't, and you want something else—"

He stops his lover's mouth with a long, sweet kiss, and when they pull apart they're both smiling. "I love it."

-

Your soulmate's birth day is on your wrist, laying against the vein that leads to your heart, but that doesn't mean anything—hundreds of infants are born on a day Six Reed or Eight Death or Ten Rabbit, and so it could be any one of them. And besides Acatl is a priest, and priests give up all claim to their soulmates when they take their vows; he shouldn't be lonely, shouldn't look at his wrist and wonder about the person whose sign appeared on his arm when he was twelve. It doesn't stop him.

So, of course, he finds his soulmate in the worst way possible. A priestess has been kidnapped and a warrior sent to assist him in his investigation; the young man, arrogant in the bright orange-and-black of a youth who's taken a prisoner unassisted, is halfway up the temple steps and meeting his eyes before the mark on his wrist starts to burn.

"You would be...Acatl-tzin?"

His name on the man's lips resounds like a bell in his heart, and it's all he can do to remain standing.

(That's bad enough. But then a week later he finds out young Teomitl is the Emperor's brother, and all he can think is Fuck.)

-

Teomitl is not yet Master of the House of Darts, not yet keeper of Tenochtitlan's armory—he's just another one of the dead Emperor's dozens of brothers, with only a few prisoners to his name and no great claims to glory—but when he strides through the palace halls, the courtiers and servants and slaves scatter out of his way like quail before the hunter's footsteps. He does not look around. His limbs do not tremble. His eyes are clear, though they burn with rage.

(The smart thing to do would be to run—to rescue Acatl-tzin and Nezahual-tzin and his valuables, to flee somewhere they can take refuge until Tizoc's paranoid rage subsides. But Acatl-tzin is not here, and he's not feeling especially smart at the moment.)

His brother—the man who will be Emperor, once their brother's funeral is over—has the nerve to look surprised to see him. He rises from his mat, eyes narrowed, and demands, "What are you doing—"

"Acatl isn't the one you should worry about betraying you," Teomitl says.

Tizoc's blood splatters his hands, his cloak, his face—and he smiles. And thinks, with some relief, There. Now we're safe.

-

"I'll think of something," Teomitl says with confidence he doesn't quite feel (gods, he fucked up, he fucked up, and how Acatl can stand before him and offer him food and say there's no need for apologies he doesn't know—he'd worn his full battle dress on the distinct chance of his former teacher just punching him in the teeth—), but then he smiles, and Acatl smiles back, and it's so hesitant and genuine and real that he has to look away and make some comment on how the city looks stretched out below them.

Honestly, he barely even sees the city, only registering the canals by the glare of the sunset on the water. His mind is too full of all the ways he'd erred (he'd been so arrogant, so impatient, so sure that he knew best and that this was the only way for him to earn respect even when Mihmatini and Acatl tried to warn him, and it had taken his wife all but holding a knife to his throat to realize he was about to do something irreparable—gods, gods, his sister Chalchiuhnenetl had wanted him to kill her, kill them all) and all he can think is that he must have broken things, that he can't understand how Acatl could forgive him (could respect him even when he wasn't Emperor—as one man to another, he'd said, and it had made Teomitl's stone heart melt) when he can barely forgive himself.

But he turns his face back to the temple steps and Acatl’s looking at him like he’s the dawn on the first morning of the Fifth World, and sometimes when things break they heal stronger.

-

Acatl's hair is wavy. It's unusual, in a place where most people's hair is stick-straight, and it's attracted Teomitl's attention from the very first time they met.

...Well. Alright. Honestly, it's not the only thing that attracted his attention on first meeting; Acatl hadn't been wearing a cloak then, and his bare chest had been a little distracting. But the hair had been the main thing, and even now that Acatl's his teacher and he's gotten used to it, he finds his fingers twitch with the urge to touch it.

"Ah, you've got—" There's something in Acatl's hair; before Teomitl can think about all the (many) reasons why it would be a bad idea, he reaches to pluck it out and smooth an errant curl behind his ear.

And then they're both blushing, and he manages by sheer effort of will not to run away.

-

In his defense, it really had seemed like a much better (and easier) idea when he'd started out. Acatl loves food and Teomitl wants him to love him, so therefore he will learn how to make food. Soup should be easy enough, never mind that he's always had his meals provided by the palace kitchens because his own culinary skills only extend as far as "put ingredients on fire until done" (and that only because he's responsible for his own meals on campaign) and Acatl deserves the best.

It turns out that clay pots explode if they're sealed too tightly and left on the fire for too long.

Mihmatini finds him crouched over the remains and favors him with a single raised eyebrow. "Do I want to know?"

He feels his face burn. "I was—uh. Soup. For Acatl. Except I...uh..." Grandmother Earth has not, so far, obliged him by swallowing him whole. Damn it.

His wife is smiling at him, but there's no trace of mockery in it. "Soup, huh? Let's get this cleaned up, and I'll show you how to make my brother's favorite."

-

When Teomitl kissed him (softly, shyly, as though he couldn't believe he was doing this, as though he thought Acatl would reject him), Acatl didn't think twice. He'd done his thinking already, many times over, haunted in the dead of night or staring in blank, twisting horror at the contents of his own mind in midafternoon sunlight, and every track had led him past his objections (he is my student—I'm too old for him—my sister loves him—I am sworn to the gods, and what of my vows?) to the same conclusion—that if Teomitl offered, if Teomitl so much as looked as though he might want him the same way, he'd accept, and gladly.

Just this once, he thought desperately. Gods, let me be selfish just this once, let me purge this desire from my veins.

So he kissed back hungrily, clumsily—he had no idea what he was doing but that didn't matter, Teomitl was offering himself up on a golden platter and for once in his life all he had to do was take it. They barely made it to his sleeping mat, fumbled with each other's loincloths until fabric ripped under their hands, tore at each other's skin the same way (he would have bruises; he welcomed them), left teeth marks in throats and collarbones and shoulders, and only when they were both sweaty and sticky and spent and Teomitl was catching his breath against his chest did Acatl realize he'd made a fatal error.

Closing his eyes didn't help. He was still far too acutely aware of the solid weight of Teomitl in his arms, the pleasantly ebbing ache of his own body under him.

Teomitl shifted against him, quirking up a hopeful, wicked grin and sliding a hand down over his chest. "Mmm, that was wonderful. Are you satisfied?"

He'd never lied to him. He didn't intend to start now, even if it made the good, moral, upright part of his conscience scream in defeat. (The selfishly hedonistic part, long-buried, was radiating smug satisfaction. He ignored it.)

"...No," he muttered. "Not yet."

"Well." Teomitl's grin only widened, eyes gleaming in a way that said he had a great many ideas on how to fix that. "Let me handle that for you."

-

Falling in love was like stepping into an inferno. He'd seen warriors sacrificed that way, and now he thought he knew how they must have felt. You spend too much time with the dead, Xochiquetzal had told him. You miss what makes humans alive. At the time he'd been unsettled; later, he'd thought that she had to be wrong, that he was fulfilled with his temple and the chants and bodies that made it up. But now…

He let his gaze slide to Teomitl again. The man was smiling, laughing at something one of Acatl's nephews had said (and which he hadn't caught, too busy having his world upturned by this revelation over a quiet family dinner), and he realized with a slow surge of emotion that he and the goddess has both been wrong. It was possible, after all, to feel safe and—and alive at the same time. To feel his heart race as though he stood at the edge of the staircase, at the edge of the fire, and yet feel no fear, because he knew he'd be safe. That it would be terrifying (exhilarating) but he'd be safe.

Teomitl's fingers just barely brushed his own.

Sparks caught in his skin, danced along his spine. He leaned in and let himself burn.

-

The cup of chocolate is bitter and spicy in his hands, and Teomitl doesn't drink. He can't—they're not safe, not really, not with Tizoc undying on his throne and him awaiting his chance to topple him. Even if it risks breaking their Empire, it will save them in the long run, he knows this...but he promised Acatl, he promised to give Tizoc time for his reign to stabilize, and he won't go back on his word. (He won't disappoint him, not again; he never, ever wants to see that look of heartbroken fury in Acatl's eyes.)

But when he smiles at Acatl...oh, Acatl smiles back, even now, even after he's fucked up so comprehensively that he's amazed the man has forgiven him, and suddenly the world seems just that little bit brighter.

[notapaladin]

everything you ever

Who ordered a BAD END AU? Anybody? Nobody? Well, you’re getting one anyway.

tl;dr: teomitl has the crown. was it worth it?

Also on AO3

-

The sun lances through high windows, striking him full in the face and turning his golden ornaments to fire. He’s still cold. He’ll be cold even wrapped in cloaks, even sitting next to a roaring fire. He hasn’t felt warm since…

Since…

(That day in the courtyard? No. Before that. His heart had been a calcified thing in his chest already, by then.)

(But oh, the stone had broken.)

He breathes. In and out, and in again. He’s still alive. All the spells cast and blood spilled in his name has brought him here, to this throne, where he will lead the Mexica to glory. He will erase Tizoc’s name as though it’s never been. He will be a Revered Speaker for the ages, spreading his smoke and mist throughout the land. Huitzilpochtli’s power pulses through him like a second heartbeat, and his people will never fear ghosts or star demons again. It was worth it. It was all worth it.

(There had been so much blood.)

For the moment, he is alone. Chalchiuhnenetl, his constant shadow advisor, holds her own court in what used to be the women’s quarters. They are hers, now. The others remain on her sufferance, his other sisters and aunts and cousins pressed into her service. They keep their eyes downcast and never raise their voices in his presence.

(Mihmatini’s eyes hot with fury as he’d taken that one step forward, fading first to shock and then disbelief as his warriors struck her down midstride. The obsidian axe shattering as it fell. Neutemoc’s deep roar of rage cut off with a horrible, final gurgle.)

(Her head rolling to land at his feet.)

He’s ordered lamps to be kept burning, but they never seem to help—or maybe it’s just that his vision is dark. Shadows mass like cobwebs in the corners of the room, in the corners of his eyes. He is Emperor Ahuizotl, the gods’ hand in the Fifth World, and he should have light and warmth around him. Shouldn’t he? There are the quetzal feathers, the jaguar pelts, the jade. The light of the Fifth Sun soaks into him as it does them, setting the precious metals to blazing and the stones to glowing. He is surrounded by riches and glory, and he has earned this.

(Cutting Tizoc down had been so easy, after that.)

The shadows waver like flame, like light on the lake’s surface. The movement of his fingers is the dry click of defleshed bones. He inhales and tastes ash on his tongue.

Footsteps approaching down the corridor, slow and measured. The faint rustling of someone removing their bone-white sandals. The rattling of the entrance curtain.

A voice as lifeless as a corpse. “You summoned me, my lord?”

He does not look at the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli. The High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli does not look at him. In and out and in again goes his breathing, too loud in his ears. It was worth it, all the blood and betrayal on his hands, for this. For the gold, the silver, the turquoise crown and turquoise rings. For the glory of the Empire, for the sake of the Fifth World, for the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli to prostrate before him and not even meet his eyes—

He did summon him. He speaks. It’s a wonder the words don’t tear his throat on the way out, leaving him choking on his own blood. “We did. We wished to have your blessings added to our planned expansion of the Great Temple.”

For the span of a heartbeat, there is silence. Then: “As my lord wills.”

“Good. You are dismissed.” His voice is steady. Calm. Regal. His mind is a choked-off scream, an arterial spray.

There is motion. He catches a fluid rise, the swirl of a gray cloak, the tumble of an errant lock of black hair. Soon he will be alone again, and that’s too much for him to bear. His chest is full of knives carving him open from the inside out. Not again.

It leaves him like an arrow, like thought, and is out in the air before he can even think to take it back. “Acatl.”

Stillness. The flicker of an eyelid. A slow, indrawn breath. “Teomitl-tzin.”

(He’d said his name just the same on that day, in front of his siblings’ corpses and Teomitl’s warriors. Cold and measured and echoing with the cavernous grief of Mictlan, held back only because he was too proud to break in front of him. It would have been easier to bear if he’d screamed.)

The knives rotate slowly, splaying his ribcage wide.  

i love you i’m sorry i love you

this was never supposed to happen. not like this

He breathes. In. Out. In again. His heart is stone, is ice, and the knives cannot touch it. He closes his eyes.

“...Nothing. You may go.”

The Revered Speaker sits on his throne, laden with gold and jade and jaguar pelts. He does not weep.

[notapaladin]

there’s you in everything i do

Five times Teomitl thought “I love you” and one time he said it out loud.

Also on AO3.

-

ce (one)

The first time Teomitl thinks the words, it’s in the shadowed privacy of his own courtyard after a lesson. Acatl is binding the wounds from their bloodletting—he insists upon it, and at any rate it’s easier than Teomitl trying to wrap his own forearm one-handed with the other end of the bandage held in his teeth—and Teomitl looks at him, grave and dark-eyed and careful, and the words fall into his mind like stones into a still pond. Slow. Heavy. Creating ripples that waver to the very edges of who he is.

I love you.

He inhales too sharply, and Acatl looks at him. “Too tight?”

What—oh, the bandages. He shakes his head.

Acatl hums quietly in acknowledgment and keeps winding. They’re focusing this week on the very basics, since they’d discovered that Teomitl has barely managed to retain the magical schooling he received when he first entered the calmecac—in his defense, swordwork is much easier than sitting still—and building a firm foundation for later knowledge requires extensive sacrifice. Many small wounds are easier to manage than one large one, and quicker to heal. He could make use of a healing priest, but he doesn’t think he will. Some part of him likes the idea that he and Acatl will match, though Acatl’s scars are more extensive than his.

At the time, he’d wondered why he couldn’t get the sight of Acatl’s wounds out of his head. It makes a lot more sense now. He loves him. It should probably be more of a shock, he muses. They’ve only known each other for less than a month, and for two weeks of that they were separated by Acatl’s trip to the Chalca mountains with Neutemoc. Surely love ought to take longer. He’s quite sure he doesn’t love Mihmatini yet, and he’s courting her. But Acatl isn’t his sister. They are both beautiful and determined and powerful, with tongues sharp as their knives when the situation calls for it, but aside from that...

Acatl is righteous. He knows the difference between good and evil, knows how balance can be such a fragile thing, and never balks from doing what has to be done. That alone would create a soft spot in Teomitl’s heart for him, but then the man has to go and be kind and patient as well—acerbic, yes, but kind. He doesn’t mind when Teomitl paces or drums his fingers on things, and he’s never even threatened to swat him for bouncing a too-energetic leg. The calloused and scarred fingers on his arm are gentle as a moth’s wings and pleasantly cool in the heat of the day. He finds himself watching them silently, afraid to speak lest he somehow shatter the strange peace of this new realization. The cuts do pain him, but next to the steady beat of the heart in his chest and the words in his brain he can’t focus on it. Even the lesson Acatl’s imparted upon him today is far from his mind.

His teacher is kind and righteous and honest, brave as any warrior—braver! He’d love to see some of the snootier generals stand in front of the Storm Lord or Jade Skirt without flinching, without being scoured clean of all life, and then to drive a knife into the Storm Lord’s eye!—and he is in love with him.

And he threw a knife at me.

It strikes him, suddenly, as faintly hilarious. He bites back a grin—unsuccessfully, because Acatl’s noticed and is raising an eyebrow at him. “What?”

Oh, there’s the heat prickling his face. Acatl’s asked a question, and he knows he should respond. Making a jest of it is safest; rile him up, and he won’t look below to ask more. “I was just thinking that you’re good with knives. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry when you threw one at me.”

Acatl bristles immediately. Teomitl decides he’s never going to tell him he sort of sounds like a turkey when he does that. It’s cute in a way no man of thirty really ought to be. “I did not throw it at you—”

“Alright, yes, you were aiming for the beast of shadows—it was an excellent hit, by the way—but it was still in my direction...”

Now they’re sort of squabbling, but Acatl’s relaxing at his smile so clearly he isn’t too offended, and the way the line between his brow smooths out makes Teomitl want to stroke it. He refrains. There’s too many reasons why it would be a terrible idea. Acatl’s vows, chastity and celibacy and the gods knew what else. Their families, and the way Teomitl’s has treated his; gods, there are days Teomitl could slap Tizoc for it. His own status—youth of imperial blood, Acatl’s student, a dozen years his junior. None of that makes him someone Acatl would want, even assuming he’d want a man at all. Mihmatini.

He can’t let himself forget Mihmatini, and the thought makes him a little sick. Yes, she’s as strong and brave as her brother. There’s no shame in caring for her, in wanting her. If he’d never met Acatl, he’d still be interested in her for her shining brightness and the beauty of her oval face. But he has met Acatl, and the gulf between what he feels for her and the tide that rises in him when he thinks of her brother can’t be described in words.

“Are you alright?”

He twitches; he’s lost track of what they were talking about. They’ve dropped the topic of knives, at least. “I’m fine,” he lies. “Just hungry; you must be, too.” At Acatl’s reluctant nod—Duality, he’s never met anyone with so much love for a good meal and so much reluctance to admit he needs one, it stabs him in the heart—he can arrange his face into a smile. “I’ll have someone bring us some food.”

He can’t have Acatl, not the way he wants. But in these little ways—in food, in companionship—he can have enough. He’s going to marry Mihmatini, and then they’ll be bound by that as well. It will be enough.

It has to be.

ome (two)

The feeling settles in him, steady as the rising sun. And like the sun, it burns. He turns that love over inside him, examining it from all angles, and every time he lifts it to the light it practically blinds him. This time, it’s during a walk home in the early morning after a long, long night. His brother is dead. There is a star demon loose in the world. He should not be thinking such things.

And yet, there it is. Acatl is prodding at him to tell him who’s spoken out against his union with Mihmatini—the union that is still going forward, even if he’s nearly sure she’s figured out he has feelings for someone else—and he’s biting his tongue on his own near-treasonous fury. It was Tizoc, of course, Tizoc who loathes Acatl and all that he stands for, all that he’s come from. Tizoc who spares no bile towards “jumped-up peasants and conniving priests.” He doesn’t think telling his brother that he really loves someone he can’t marry would change his mind at all.

It’s a relief when they reach Acatl’s house, a further relief when Acatl invites him in. There’s so little that he can do to help, but at least here he can be useful, even if it’s only guarding his mentor while he sleeps. Acatl’s courtyard is a tiny little patch of dirt with a well and a tree, and it tugs at his heart. The man should have a pool. A garden. Teomitl casts a sideways glance at him, as tired as ever, and has to close his eyes for a moment at the mental image of marigolds caught in the waves of his hair.

Closing his eyes doesn’t help. He can hear the way Acatl stretches, and his mind fills in the ripple of lean muscle and the arch of a too-thin spine. It makes his blood pound and his voice come out sharper than it should be. “Go to sleep. You need it.”

“What about you?”

“I told you. I’ll stand guard.” But oh, his heart is a traitor. It’s too easy to picture laying down beside him, watching that face go soft and slack in sleep, knowing they’d be safe together. His gaze drifts towards Acatl’s sleeping quarters. “Should I bid you good night?”

“Hah,” says Acatl, dry as ever. “No.”

“Very well.” He finds himself smiling. Some things don’t change, even in the midst of so much upheaval. Acatl’s never liked to be fussed over. “Sleep well—” And then he has to clamp his mouth shut, because he’s almost added an endearment to that, almost added I love you. It would be so easy. He’s a fool.

Luckily, Acatl is too tired to notice his strange intonation. He trudges off into his rooms and lets the curtain drop behind him in a jangle of bells, and for the moment Teomitl is alone.

He breathes in. Out. In again. It should center him, but it doesn’t. The world still feels...still feels wrong, and not just magically. His brother, his Emperor, is dead, and now all that’s standing between them and the star demons is a paper-thin ward and whatever strength and cunning they can muster. Tizoc is Master of the House of Darts, and if he had the sense the gods gave a turkey he would be using his position to help them.

He’s pretty sure his brother does not, in fact, have that much sense. At least not enough to see past his own prejudices where Acatl is concerned. It makes something sick coil in his stomach. Acatl is strong and capable, but he doesn’t take care of himself, too concerned for the boundaries and the fate of the Fifth World. If Tizoc expresses his vitriol in more than words, if he decides that Acatl or his family is a threat somehow...

It’s too much. He creeps to the entrance curtain and lifts it as slowly and carefully as he can, holding his breath when a bell chimes. Don’t let him wake. Please don’t let him wake.

Acatl doesn’t wake. He sleeps like a corpse, mouth open slightly and the great wealth of his hair spilling over his mat, but he is sleeping and not dead. For the moment, he’s safe. For the moment, there’s nothing more Teomitl has to do here.

So instead, he watches. In sleep, Acatl’s face relaxes; he looks his age, or maybe a little younger, and it’s a stark reminder that this man is beautiful. That it would be a joy to touch him, to lay down beside him, to wake from slumber to see his face. That if he dared, if he was brave or foolish enough, he could gather him in his arms and kiss him awake.

He’s taken a step into the room before his mind catches up to him. No. No, he’s twice and three times a fool. Even if he was free to make his feelings known, Acatl has to get some sleep. It’s the least of what he’ll need to survive what’s coming.

His heart hasn’t gotten the message, though, and hammers against his ribs until he’s back in the sunlight. Even then he can feel it in his spine, in his fingertips; he falls to his knees and squeezes his eyes shut, and it doesn’t help. The bones of Acatl’s slender wrists look so fragile. It’s too easy to imagine shackles on them, or worse. He knows how easily men die, he’s seen it in battle, he’s seen the ruin of Ocome’s corpse, and to think of that happening to Acatl—

No. Acatl will be safe. He will. Teomitl will keep him that way. Monsters—even star demons, even sorcerers—can be fought. Tizoc still hates him, and that’s a problem they don’t need, but...surely Tizoc wouldn’t move against him. Not now, with star demons among them, a very likely coronation in his future, and Teomitl’s marital prospects an easier target. Surely his brother isn’t that stupid.

yei (three)

Tizoc is that stupid. Teomitl is going to kill him. No matter that he’s his brother, no matter that he’s set to be his Emperor, Teomitl is going to kill him. With his bare hands, if necessary. And then he’ll gut Quenami and feed him to an ahuitzotl and laugh.

They’ve put him in his chambers, with an armed guard outside his doors, and he paces like a caged jaguar. His jaw is clenched so tight that his temples ache, and he’s long since sliced shallow half-moons into his palms with his own nails. It’s been all he can do not to rake them across his own forearms over and over, letting the pain drive his thoughts away. He can’t afford to let his mind be blank now, not when he needs so desperately to find them a way out of this. He doesn’t know where Nezahual is—in his quarters, probably. They wouldn’t have wanted to imprison an allied Revered Speaker. Not for their precious politics. When he blinks, he can still see Quenami’s smug, sick smile behind his eyelids, can still see the edge of a blade pressed to Acatl’s throat.

On second thought, maybe he’ll kill Quenami first.

But before he can do that, he has to get out of here. He stops, turns, and takes a breath, pitching his voice to carry to the guards. “When is Acatl-tzin’s trial?”

“Tomorrow.” For a moment he feels hope, and then the guard dashes it. “The outcome is set, my lord. Acatl-tzin will be executed for treason.”

His mind goes blank with horror. No. No. Nonononono. The word beats in tune with his heart; he wants to scream or sob or break something, like a table or a bowl or someone’s neck.

He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t sob. The bowl does break over the guard’s skull, but he’s pretty sure both of them will survive. He didn’t hit either of them that hard. Anyway, now he’s free, and he needs allies. He needs...

Ugh. He needs Nezahual.

For once in this waking nightmare of a day, luck is on his side. Nezahual is in his chambers, and they haven’t set a guard on him. Perhaps they think he’s too honorable to break out; perhaps someone’s pointed out how close they are to war. Either way, there’s nothing stopping him from bursting in with a cacophonous jangle of curtain-bells, nearly out of breath from running through the palace. “We have to get to Acatl,” he snaps, and Nezahual rises to his feet as he sucks in a breath to add, “They’re going to kill him.”

Nezahual doesn’t move. His head tilts, all polite commiseration. “Oh. That’s...unfortunate. Still, I don’t see why I should risk—nghk.”

He’s had enough. He slams Nezahual against the wall, and a knife is in his hands and at the man’s throat before he can blink. The Revered Speaker of Texcoco seems suddenly to remember that he is mortal. He shuts up, at any rate, but maybe that’s just because Teomitl has a blade pressed to his jugular. “You will risk it,” he snarls. He can feel his eyes burning and knows they’ve turned yellow as an ahuitzotl’s; when he sucks in a lung-scorching breath, it smells like the lake. “Because if you don’t—if you do nothing and he dies, Nezahual—you will be next, and I swear by all the gods that I will make it slow.”

Nezahual’s eyes are round with shock and more than a bit of fear, but as Teomitl speaks some of that fear seems to leave him. “Ah,” he says, in the same utterly calm tone he might use for commenting on the weather. “It’s like that, is it?”

His hand shakes. A tiny drop of blood wells up at the point of his knife. “Like what.”

“Never mind.” And Nezahual has the nerve to smile at him. Teomitl entertains thoughts of carving it right off his face. “If I’m going to help you, you do need to let me go.”

He nearly wrenches something stepping back, but he doesn’t sheathe his knife. Not yet. He might still have need of it. At first he watches as Nezahual gathers his things, but the man is so damned calm about it that he winds up fixing his gaze on the doorway instead. It’s easier to focus on with the rage threatening to shake his bones apart. “Hurry up.”

Nezahual throws a few more things into a bag and straightens up, meeting his eyes. “Do you have a plan?”

“I,” he starts, and then feels a hot tide of shame crawl up his face. He doesn’t have a plan. Well, he has the start of one, but since it involves fratricide he’s keeping it very far in reserve. “What do you think I needed you for?” he snaps instead. “Aren’t you Quetzalcoatl’s agent in the Fifth World?”

There’s that smile again, thin and fanged as a snake’s, and Nezahual nods coolly at him. “There is a spell He has granted me, a manifestation of His energies. It can get Acatl-tzin out of the palace, but I’ll need your help. How good are you at controlling those ahuitzotls of yours?”

Acatl’s taught him well. He inhales, tastes lake water again, and whatever Nezahual sees in his face makes him still. “I can do it.”

He has to. There’s no other choice. He meant what he said; if Acatl dies, so will everyone responsible. If Acatl dies, he’ll—

No, he thinks. I love him. I won’t let him die. To contemplate failure is to be halfway to the stairs, halfway to the edge of the fire. They’ll rescue Acatl, and then they’ll figure out where to go from there.

The hours pass in a haze. They need boats. They need to find Nezahual’s warriors. They need to be armed. Teomitl takes care of that, as well as the run to the Duality House to get Mihmatini to safety. She’s furious, of course, ready to rip Tizoc’s throat out with her teeth, but when Teomitl clasps her hands and begs she straightens her spine and starts packing. It’s a relief. He’s not in love with her, no, but if he lost her too he might really break in half from the inside out. He can already feel the cracks forming.

When Acatl slides off the monstrous feathered serpent Nezahual’s summoned, he’s almost afraid to breathe too deeply lest he shatter. He’d thought he knew what an exhausted Acatl looked like, but this goes beyond that. Acatl looks...he looks drained. Diminished. There’s a half-healed cut on his hand, but that can’t account for the shadows under his eyes and the way his limbs are trembling. Whatever happened to him overnight, it’s taken more out of him than he can afford to lose.

If they make it out of this, Teomitl’s going to skin his brother alive. “Acatl-tzin. You look...”

“I’m fine,” he says.

Teomitl wants to spit. He wants to weep. He wants to pull Acatl into his arms and stay there until the Sixth Sun rises. You’re not fine! You almost died! I love you, and you almost died! But he keeps his mouth shut. Nezahual is an unsheathed blade dripping poison at his side, and Teomitl can’t be weak here.

Acatl is alive. He’s with them, and he’s alive. Teomitl’s going to make sure he stays that way, no matter what it takes.

nahui (four)

Acatl is walking away, and Teomitl is letting him. There’s nothing else he can do.

He thinks, distantly, that he should be screaming, but he can’t seem to make himself open his mouth. We need to talk, he’d said to Acatl, cold and calm and still as the turquoise in his brother’s crown, and look where that had gotten him. Look where it’s getting him now. Acatl’s looked at him in helpless fury and spat out his words as a parting gift, and he hasn’t listened to Teomitl at all.

“Just don’t expect any help from me,” he’d said, and something in Teomitl’s chest had turned to stone. He thinks it’s his heart. He can’t believe he’s still on his feet, still breathing; surely the look on Acatl’s face should have killed him. For a moment he’d thought Acatl would strike him. Gods, he’d actually hoped for it. It would have hurt less.

I love you. I’m sorry. I love you.

It’s not too late. Acatl hasn’t left the compound yet; he could run after him. Could grab him by the cloak, spin him around, and tell him—tell him—

Tell him what? It won’t change what he has to do. It won’t heal the rift between them. It certainly won’t erase the darkness in Acatl’s eyes or relax his clenched fists. Acatl wants him to give up, wants him to lay down his arms and come home, and he doesn’t understand that he can’t. That this is the only way forward, the only way he’ll be able to save them or the Empire. It’s not about his own grudges, not anymore.

“My lord?”

One of his warriors. He’s forgotten the man’s name. “Leave me.” The words burn his throat.

“My lord—”

He whirls on his heel, the courtyard shimmering like sunlight through water in his vision. The warrior looks terrified. “I said leave me! Both of you!”

They leave. He’s alone.

He takes one breath, two, and slams his fist into the wall. The rough adobe stings, but it isn’t enough; he strikes the wall again, splitting his knuckles, and welcomes the blood and the burn of it. Pain will cleanse him. Pain is...is...

He hears Acatl’s voice in his mind, a long-ago lesson, back when he was his student. “Pain is an offering to the gods.”

His legs buckle, and he falls to his knees and sucks in one great gulp of air after another. He has to get himself under control. He has to. Everything is coming together, and he can’t afford the distractions of his own feelings anymore. If he’s going to be a fit Revered Speaker, he can’t be like this. His heart has to be stone, not flesh and blood.

It feels like it takes an eternity, but eventually the urge to howl leaves him and he stares down at his aching knuckles, now curled loosely in his lap. Foolish, he thinks dully. He’ll need himself in full working order if he’s to succeed.

Footsteps behind him. Even if he didn’t recognize their cadence, he’d know his sister by her magic anyway; Toci’s power clings to her like oil, like smoke, and always makes him a little nauseous. Then again, he hasn’t had much appetite since his illness, so it doesn’t really matter. As she sits down next to him, her voice is soft and dry as sand. “It went poorly with your teacher, didn’t it.”

That’s one way of describing it. He half-turns, keeping her in the corner of his eye. “Mm.”

There’s a long, gusty sigh. “Ah, Teomitl, I’m sorry.” She sets a hand on his shoulder like a bird’s claw, and it takes everything he has not to flinch away. “He never will see you as a man grown, will he? Always thinking he knows best.”

He thought I’d gone mad. He thought I wasn’t thinking, that I hadn’t planned—

Tizoc is twisted and craven, and he’ll twist and twist until he tears the Empire apart. Why can’t Acatl see that? They can weather this storm, can stand to break just a little more if it means they’ll heal strong in the end. He’ll be able to fix what his brother is breaking. He knows it. “He’s wrong,” he chokes out. “But—”

He can’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to. “He’ll see. You know what sort of man he is. Too stubborn for his own good, always pushing himself into danger and being surprised when he bleeds for it. He simply can’t adapt to change.”

Ah, that’s right. He’d still looked at Teomitl as his wayward student, his responsibility, someone to be brought to heel like an irresponsible child. The memory of his tone sends bile rising in Teomitl’s throat again, and he has to swallow hard. “...He was worried,” he murmurs. “About the Fifth World. About the Empire.”

“And not about himself at all.” She sniffs. “You told me he almost died of the plague. He’s already weak. Easy prey.”

He doesn’t like to think about that. Acatl had said he was fine now, but Acatl always says he’s fine. He doesn’t seem to place any value on his own life. “Mm.”

“He’ll never be safe as long as our brother is on the throne. Tizoc’s mere presence in this world tears a hole in the boundaries,”—of course she knows about that; he hadn’t meant to tell her but it had flopped out of his mouth like a dead fish anyway—“and even if it didn’t, you know he’ll try to kill him eventually. He’s always hated him. To say nothing of what he might do to your wife.”

The sword at Acatl’s throat. The noose seen through his ahuitzotl’s eyes. Collapsing against Acatl’s chest as their boat pulled into Texcoco’s piers and knowing that their lives were still at risk, that Acatl was a dead man walking as long as Tizoc was alive. And Mihmatini...gods, that heartstopping fear of knowing she was in Tizoc’s presence, in danger, and he could do nothing to help. His gorge rises, and he thinks for a moment that he’s going to be sick. “Ngh.”

She cocks her head. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was truly concerned. “Are you ill, dear brother?”

He shakes himself briskly, scattering his dark thoughts. Soon, Tizoc won’t be a threat anymore. “I’m fine.”

“If you say so. Ah, but listen to me prattling on.” She pats his shoulder again. “You don’t need me to tell you what we’re facing. You know you were made to wear the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown, no matter who tries to lure you from the path you were meant to trod. Shall we eat supper? There’s some of that dragonfruit you like.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he gets to his feet. “Mm.”

She’s right, as always. This is something he must do. It’s what he was born for—not just to keep the Empire together, but to make it great and powerful again. To lead it to glory. To keep the people he loves safe even if they hate him for it. He can’t waste time concerning himself with anyone’s feelings, especially not his own. His heart is stone, and it does not bleed.

But there is a crack, and deep inside him he can feel the ache.

macuil (five)

I love you. I love you.

It beats under his skin in tune with his pulse as he walks up the steps of Acatl’s temple. Walks, not runs, because he doesn’t know what he’ll find at the top. There’s cold sweat trickling down his spine under his layers of cotton-and-feather armor, and it’s only sheer force of will that has him breathing evenly. At least he’s run out of tears by now.

As he ascends, Acamapichtli is coming down. He must know Teomitl’s footsteps, because he aims a sarcastic smile in his direction. There’s no such sarcasm in his voice when he mutters, “Good luck.” The You’ll need it goes unspoken.

He doesn’t think all the luck in the world will save him now. His throat is so tight he can’t even manage a grunt of acknowledgment. One step, two, and then he is at the top of the temple and staring at Acatl.

The man he could so easily have disregarded, blinded by his ambition and his certainty that he knew best—the man he could so easily have killed—looks tired and worn-down and a little stunned to see him, and it cracks what’s left of his heart in two. Teomitl forces his name out through numb lips. “Acatl-tzin.” This is it. This has to be the last chance he’ll ever get, because surely, surely he’ll never be able to say that name again. He'd prepared a speech, but now it seems a shallow and tawdry thing. He can only beg, though he has no hope it will go over any better. He wonders how far he’ll get before Acatl orders him out of his sight.

Acatl doesn’t order him out of his sight. Instead he sighs, motioning him forward. “Come on. There are some maize cakes.”

Maize cakes? He’s getting maize cakes? Acatl feels kindly enough towards him to share food? Though he doesn’t move, he feels like the words knock him backwards anyway. Somehow he manages to stammer out, “I came to apologize—” Please. Please. You could kill me, and I would offer you the knife.

Acatl shakes his head; the movement dislodges a loose coil of hair to brush against his neck, and Teomitl’s fingers itch. "No need for that.”

What. The words knock all the air out of his lungs. It’s a warm day, but he’s frozen solid.

Acatl’s still talking. “I think we've both made mistakes that we shouldn't have. The important thing is that we're safe."

Safe. Safe. He can breathe again, the muscles in his chest relaxing enough for his lungs to expand. Tizoc is still on the throne, but the hole in the boundaries is smaller now; though his brother is a danger,  at least they won’t need to fear ghosts or that terrible plague. Acatl and Mihmatini have saved them from that, and what has he done? Only gotten in their way, only made them grieve when they couldn’t have afforded that. Acatl might say they’re both at fault, but he feels guilt tear at his throat anyway.

Never again. I swear to the Duality, to all the gods who are listening, I’ll never treat them like that again. He’s scored welts on his forearms with his nails, blunt as they are; under the long sleeves of his feather suit, they itch. It will do as an offering for now.

There are maize cakes. He takes one and sits down on the steps, breaking the cake in half just to give himself something to do with his hands. The crumbs are soft and yellow against his skin, but he doesn’t eat. He doesn’t think he can. "I'll give it a few years,” he says quietly. “If we hold that long." Whatever else happens, whatever Acatl thinks of him, he won’t hide from him any longer. There will be no more secrets, save the one he holds deepest in his heart.

"I know."

He can’t bring himself to meet Acatl’s gaze. "You disapprove."

"...I don't know." That’s softer, an admission of vulnerability that makes his heart throb.

He pours himself a bowl of chocolate, half-hoping it will settle his stomach, but when he inhales its bitter scent he finds he can’t bring himself to drink it yet, not with more words laying like dead things on his tongue. "I don't think Mihmatini will ever forgive me." By some miracle they’re still married, and he’s not sure how he managed that. He thinks vomiting up the truth—that it wasn’t just his ambitions, that he’d looked at what Tizoc could do to the people he loved and he’d been terrified—might have helped, but it doesn’t change how he’s treated her. She should hate him. But so should Acatl, and now they’re sitting together and talking as though he hasn’t ruined everything. As though there’s hope.

"Give it time,” Acatl says. “I can't help you there. I don't think, in fact, that I can help you much at all.” He takes a breath, and Teomitl can feel his eyes on him. Acatl’s voice is far, far warmer than he deserves. “You were right in one thing; you're far too adult to have a teacher."

Without meaning to, he looks up—and finds himself smiling. It sits strangely on his face. "You said things as one man to another. That won't change, Acatl." That slips out before he can stop it, and he finds it flows smoothly from his mouth. Acatl. Just his name, because they are both men, aren’t they? Teomitl is longer his student, no longer someone he feels the need to protect. Now he’s someone he can respect as an equal.

Acatl’s quiet for a moment before he responds. "No, I guess not.”

Teomitl takes a breath, ready to speak—it won’t change, it won’t, I swear that even when I stand before you as Emperor you’ll still be the man I—but he can’t say it. If he does, he won’t stop. Instead he drops his gaze to his bowl of chocolate, takes another breath, and begins, “When Tizoc comes back...” He still wants to carve his brother’s heart out, but that’s not as important as he thought it was. He can wait.

“Yes?”

“...I’ll ask him about Tlatelolco. It's high time that wound was healed. We can't keep making them pay for something that happened thirteen years ago." He wonders how Chalchiuhnenetl might have turned out if they hadn’t. If they’d modeled mercy.

"What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know.” He realizes he’s echoing Acatl’s own words, and it brings another smile to his face. It’s alright that he doesn’t have the answers right away. Acatl isn’t expecting him to, and it won’t make the man respect him any less.

This time, Acatl smiles back, a soft and half-uncertain curve of his lips that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners, and Teomitl feels his knees go weak even sitting down. Acatl is handsome already, but when he smiles he is radiant. He thinks, now, that his heart has never been stone; it’s always been flesh and blood, and now it’s beating for the sake of that smile. Duality, I was the biggest fool in the Fifth World to think I could make myself feel nothing for you.

They’re still sitting too close to each other. “...I’ll think of something,” he continues, and gets to his feet. If he keeps looking at that smiling face, he’s going to do something stupid.

The city below them is beautiful—noisy and bright and shining like a jewel on the water, and all theirs to love and protect. Far in the distance, he can hear the sound of music, and the wind carries the smell of dinners from a thousand kitchens. The canals glitter in the golden light of the setting sun, the sun that will rise again and again, the sun that will light Acatl’s smile forever. “It hasn’t changed,” he murmurs.

Acatl’s voice is soft with wonder behind him, and he’s glad he’s looking away. His heart already feels like melted honey; if he turns around right now and sees whatever expression is on the man’s face, he’s not sure he could handle it. “No, it hasn’t changed.”

But you have, he thinks. We both have, and thank the gods for that.

ce (one)

Acatl’s exhausted. All of them can see it. The renovation Tizoc is planning for the Great Temple shouldn’t be his purview, but with how thin the boundaries are and how useless Quenami functionally is—Teomitl still entertains thoughts of flinging the High Priest of Huitzilopochtli down the steps of his own temple and watching him roll all the way to the bottom—it’s somehow become his purview anyway. Nobody wants to risk Coyolxauhqui’s release, after all, even if her prison is on the very lowest level where the builders shouldn’t touch. Acatl’s been working nearly nonstop for weeks, and even Ichtaca and Ezamahual are concerned.

Teomitl is not concerned. Teomitl has left concern several miles back, and is now squarely in the territory of fury. He stomps up the temple steps to where he knows Acatl is still reviewing their oldest records, yanking the entrance curtain aside in a discordant jangle of bells.

“Acatl. It’s time for a break.”

Acatl looks terrible. There’s dried blood caught in a lock of hair by his ear, and the shadows under his eyes are dark enough Teomitl could drown in them. Still, he barely looks up from the codex he’s glaring at. “I’m busy.”

He feels a sudden, fierce sympathy for all the times Mihmatini has ordered him to slow down and relax. “It can wait,” he snaps.

Acatl draws in a breath. “I—”

He doesn’t want to hear excuses, not when it comes to Acatl’s health. There can be other priests, but in all the world there’s only one of the man he loves. “You’ve barely been sleeping or eating. Come with me.” And before Acatl can protest any further, he stalks over and hauls him to his feet. It’s so, so easy to wrap a hand around his wrist and pull him up, and for a moment Acatl’s too stunned to object.

Then he must remember his dignity, because he yanks his wrist roughly out of Teomitl’s grip and takes a step back, glaring at him. “I know my own limits—”

“No, you don’t!” It comes out too loud, but he doesn’t care. Making Acatl see is more important. “You don’t take any care for yourself, Acatl! You’re running yourself ragged, and I don’t—” His voice cracks. I don’t want to see you like this. I can’t let you kill yourself working for people that don’t appreciate you, that won’t let you rest. I need you.

“I am fine!” Now Acatl’s shouting—actually shouting, when he hardly ever raises his voice—and it sends a pang through Teomitl’s heart.

“You are not! Acatl, please. I love you, I can’t lose you—”

Acatl rocks back as though he’s been slapped, staring at Teomitl wide-eyed as a fawn. His mouth works, but no sound comes out; when he finds his voice again, it trembles. “...You what?”

Oh. Shit. He’s said that out loud. His heart drops into his stomach, which shouldn’t be possible with how hard it’s beating; he can’t hear anything past the roaring in his ears. His fists clench, but there’s nothing to fight here except himself and his own foolishness.

“I. Uh. Um.” He swallows hard, which at least seems to abate the lightheaded terror enough for him to form a complete sentence. “Please feel free to forget it—it’s only that I, that I care for you, and—”

Acatl holds up a hand to cut him off. He’s flushed—with anger or embarrassment, Teomitl can’t tell—but his voice is admirably steady. “I will not.” He takes a deep breath, and this time their eyes meet. “You...did you mean that?” He sounds...shocked. Disbelieving. As though there’s somehow any doubt that he could be loved, that Teomitl is the one who loves him.

He nods mutely. He’s amazed he can even move.

Acatl makes a small, strangled noise and goes even redder, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Ah.”

All of a sudden, Teomitl can’t bear it. He’s torn his heart out of his chest and laid it at Acatl’s feet, and Acatl is looking at it like something to be studied. He has to leave.

As he turns to go, Acatl’s voice stops him in his tracks. The last time he heard such wonder in it, they’d been standing on these same steps, and he’d been reeling with the notion that maybe he hadn’t destroyed what lay between them after all. Hearing it now makes it hard to breathe. “...You...love me. Truly? Me?”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns to face the man again. Every instinct still screams at him to flee, but he holds his ground. He’s not a coward. Weak, but not a coward. “I won’t apologize for it. But I know you don’t feel the same way, so...”

Again Acatl cuts him off, but this time it’s with his voice alone, soft and steady as the rock under their feet. “Teomitl.”

Acatl’s said his name thousands of times, but never like this. Never so soft and careful, as though each syllable is a jewel. When he takes a step closer, Teomitl realizes just how small the top of this temple is. They’re very, very close. “Ngh.”

Close enough to touch. Acatl sets a hand gently on his upper arm, anchoring him in place. “You’re wrong.”

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say. Hope is a swarm of butterflies in his chest. “I—” he begins.

And then Acatl kisses him.

Oh. It’s barely even a brush of lips, like a bird’s wings, and it’s gone in an instant; he feels it down to his soul anyway. When Acatl draws back and looks at him, he’s sure he’s forgotten how to breathe.

Acatl doesn’t quite smile, but the way his gaze softens as he meets Teomitl’s eyes is just as heart-melting. “I’m not an eloquent man. But I...my feelings for you...”

He loves me. A fierce tide of joy rushes through his veins, and it’s suddenly the easiest thing in the world to reach for Acatl and pull him close, one hand at his waist and the other burying itself into tangled hair. They don’t need words, not when Teomitl can kiss him instead, but when he breaks the kiss for air he can’t help breathing, “Love you so much—” and then Acatl is hauling him in with nails digging into his shoulderblades so clearly they don’t exactly hurt.

By the time they pull apart, they’re both breathing hard. Acatl’s smiling gloriously, but as he catches his breath it starts to fade. His gaze skitters away for a moment before alighting somewhere near Teomitl’s left ear. “...I have to ask. What about my sister?”

Ah, Mihmatini. He truly had thought she’d never forgive him, but he’d been pleasantly surprised. True, things between them had been distinctly frosty for a week or so, but then she’d grabbed him by the front of his tunic and asked him if he was in love with her brother and...well. He’d been too startled to even think of lying, and the truth could hardly have made her any less angry. But she had only laughed—truly laughed, a horribly undignified snorting giggle he kind of loves—and wished him luck, and now they are friends again. It makes him smile. “I would be a fool to go behind her back, wouldn’t I? She gives her blessing.”

“...Ah.” And now Acatl’s blushing again. “That explains...quite a bit.”

He feels his own face burn. “I don’t want to know, do I?”

Acatl seems about to affirm this, but then his stomach rumbles. Loudly.

Teomitl can’t help but grin. “So,” he says. “About that break.”

Acatl sighs, but doesn’t so much as glance at his discarded codex. “...You were right. I am rather hungry.”

He takes Acatl’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s eat.”

[notapaladin]

Chalchiuhnenetl: Remember that old saying, "If at first you don’t succeed..."

Teomitl: "Try to pretend it never happened."

[notapaladin]

Chalchiuhnenetl: Describe Acatl in one word.

Teomitl: Mine.

[notapaladin]

Teomitl: Hey, I need some advice.

Chalchiuhnenetl: And you came to me?

Teomitl: Yes.

Chalchiuhnenetl: A terrible choice.

Teomitl: Look, if I wanted to FIX my problems, I wouldn't be here. Now come on and help me do the wrong thing.

[notapaladin]

harmonic orchestra, the gen edition (pt 1)

yeah you know the drill by now, here’s the gen fills

AO3

-

1 (acatl – autistic)

His tutors all said the same things about him—what a smart boy, what a studious boy, he'll go far in the priesthood. Acatl supposed they were probably correct about that; he was smart, he was studious, and he threw himself into the rituals with a fervor that annoyed the nobles' sons who were only there for power. They didn't understand how he could ponder the codices for hours, how he could sit silent as the statue of Lord Death and watch the funeral pyres burn.

He didn't understand it himself, really; all he knew, in those moments when he contemplated the inside of his own mind, was that having it consumed by devotion to the gods felt right.

-

2 (teomitl & chalchiuhnenetl – a deal with the devil)

"I can give you the crown you deserve," his elder sister says.

Teomitl thinks of their brother on the throne, twisted and craven; he is no fit warrior, no fit Emperor, no fit conduit of Huitzilopochtli's power in the Fifth World, but to slay him and take the crown by force of arms would be treason, would no doubt sever the ties between Teomitl and the people who, somehow, love him.

But if he doesn't, Tizoc will twist and twist until he tears the Empire apart, and Teomitl's loved ones will not be alive to hate him...so he meets his sister's eyes, and nods his assent.

-

3 (acatl – awkward formal dinners)

There are many reasons for Acatl, High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, to hate formal banquets—the heavy formal regalia, the noblemen not-so-subtly sneering at the jumped-up peasant in their midst, the certain knowledge that there is political scheming going on somewhere and it's sure to bite him in the ass just when he least expects it—but top of the list has to be the seating arrangements, because he is sharing a mat with the high priests of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc and he hates both of them to a depth unplumbed by any line.

When Quenami smiles his oily smile and asks how he's been lately, as though Acatl's forgiven him for the time he almost had him executed for treason, Acatl has to resist the urge to drown him in his own soup bowl. No matter how satisfying it would be, it won't help for long.

Acamapichtli sighs heavily as he meets his eye—Quenami is still talking, Southern Hummingbird blind him—and for a split second there is understanding between them. Though I loathe you and everything you stand for, that look says, I’ll at least credit you with not being Quenami.

4 (teomitl & acatl – well seasoned)

It's simple food—tamales stuffed with duck and chilies—but Acatl made it, so when he offers some to Teomitl...well, of course he'll eat it and be happy even if it turns out to be terrible, because he knows for a fact that it's been made with love instead of poison which therefore puts it miles ahead of anything the palace kitchen gives him.

"This is delici—"

And that's how he finds out that Acatl, unlike everyone else in Tenochtitlan and probably the world, has absolutely no upper limit on how hot he likes his chili peppers.

-

5 (acatl – relaxing)

His nieces and nephews are splashing in the pool, water spraying the air, as Teomitl and Mihmatini chase after them; Acatl doesn't worry, because he knows they'll be safe with those two looking after them. He knows the world will be safe, too; for the moment, he has nothing to do but relax and occasionally nibble a piece of fruit from the tray by his knee. It’s almost a foreign sensation, but not an unwelcome one.

Feeling warm in every limb—feeling, for once, content—Acatl closes his eyes and tilts his face to the sun.

-

6 (teomitl & acatl – if I didn’t have you)

Sometimes, Teomitl thinks about the man he might have become if he'd never met Acatl—proud to the point of arrogance, bravery turned to recklessness, no fit inheritor to even be considered for the throne—and he has to shudder in horror. One look at Tizoc (at his brother, gods, the thought sickens him now that they came from the same parents), at his excesses and paranoia, reminds him how close he could have come to falling. (It would have been easy. It terrifies him to think how easy it would have been.)

"You were the greatest teacher I could have ever had," he tells Acatl, and means it with all his heart.

-

7 (mihmatini & acatl – saying I love you without words)

"I ate," her older brother tells her, and Mihmatini sighs and rolls her eyes. She knows Acatl too well by now not to also know that his last meal was probably a full day ago, half stale, and not nearly filling enough for a man whose day job involves running across half of Tenochtitlan slaying monsters and dealing with the magical strain of keeping the world in one piece.

She sets a hand on his shoulder, keeping him firmly in place, and fills his bowl with a serving of the spicy grilled newts she knows he likes. "Eat something anyway."

-

8 (quenami – is that the hill you’re going to die on?)

The really funny thing, Quenami reflects idly, isn't that Acatl is still protesting his innocence—he's always been stubborn to a fault, and far too principled for his own good.

No, the funny thing is that Acatl, for some reason (probably because he, as a principled man, thinks others can be swayed by things like reason and logic) thinks they actually care, as though the results of the upcoming trial will be anything other than a foregone conclusion. Of course he'll die claiming his unwavering loyalty to the Empire, but it doesn't matter—he'll be dead anyway, and Quenami will never have to deal with him again.

The trial is in the morning. He can barely wait.

-

9 (teomitl – shadow of the crown)

He turns the Turquoise-and-Gold Crown over and over in his hands, tracing the intricate mosaic of blue stones with remarkably steady fingers. He thinks, distantly, that there should be blood on it—that his brother's passing should have stained it irreparably, even though Teomitl had, in the end, nothing at all to do with his demise. (He’s not sure who did. It might have been the She-Snake. It might have been any one of Tizoc’s enemies. It might even be Acatl, for all he knows—not that he’d mind if it was.)

The sun gleams on the metal, but when he finally sets it on his head he still feels cold.

-

10 (acatl – too tired to sleep)

He was tired down to his bones—no, past his bones, tired all the way down to every part of his soul—but sleep stubbornly refused to come. No matter how much he tossed and turned on his mat, no matter how much he desperately wished for unconsciousness, the room was too warm or his neck hurt or, for all he knew, the stars weren't in position for him to succumb.

Fighting the urge to beat his head against the ground—it wouldn't help, and would just make him sore in addition to his rising ill-temper—he rolled over again and buried his head in the crook of his arm until sunrise.

-

11 (teomitl & mihmatini – almost beyond repair)

He's standing in front of his wife, sword in the dirt between them, and he knows this can't ever be fixed—that he was too greedy, reached too far, foolishly thought it would all come together when the people he loved knew, knew, that it was falling apart.

Mihmatini meets his eyes, her own gaze absolutely furious, and asks, "Why? Why did—what in the gods' names possessed you to think this was all a good idea? Tizoc-tzin is unfit to be Emperor, that's true, we all know it—but for you to think to kill him—"

"He was going to kill Acatl." It comes out in a rush, without any prior planning or thought on his part, but it's the truth. Tizoc might be his Emperor, his brother, but he tried to execute Acatl for treason and that's not something Teomitl will ever forgive.

And Mihmatini, who loves her older brother as much as Teomitl does, stares at him for a long, long moment...and then she nods. "Understandable."

Maybe, Teomitl thinks, this can be salvaged after all.

-

12 (acatl – a moment’s peace)

The funeral was officially over, but the pyre still burned hot; it would keep burning until Coyolli of the Atempan calpulli was reduced to ashes, and then he and his fellow priests would see her remains interred. Acatl sat by the pyre, upwind from the smoke, and finally took a long, deep breath.

His work was not done, but the drums had stopped and the wailing of the dead woman's relatives no longer rang in his ears, and so—for the moment—he could rest.

“Acatl-tzin?”

Ah. One of his priests with a question. He closed his eyes, permitted himself a small sigh, and got to his feet again.

-

13 (teomitl & acatl – doing math in your head)

"Hmmm...let me see...our suspect was born on the third day of Izcalli in the year Five Rabbit, which makes him an…"

"Eight Monkey."

Teomitl lifted his head from the sheet of bark paper on which he was carefully and laboriously calculating the interactions between the civil and liturgical calendars, staring incredulously at his teacher—his teacher who, quite plainly, had just done some very complicated math in his head. "Acatl-tzin. How in the fuck."

"Language," he said, but he was smiling. "And practice. I can teach you that as well, if you'd like."

"Most people can't do math in their heads!"

-

14 (teomitl – unexpected forgiveness)

The cup of chocolate is bitter and spicy in his hands, and Teomitl doesn't drink. He can't—they're not safe, not really, not with Tizoc undying on his throne and him awaiting his chance to topple him. Even if it risks breaking their Empire, it will save them in the long run, he knows this...but he promised Acatl, he promised to give Tizoc time for his reign to stabilize, and he won't go back on his word. (He won't disappoint him, not again; he never, ever wants to see that look of heartbroken fury in Acatl's eyes.)

But when he smiles at Acatl...oh, Acatl smiles back, even now, even after he's fucked up so comprehensively that he's amazed the man has forgiven him, and suddenly the world seems just that little bit brighter.

-

15 (tizoc – from the pov of the villain)

He is the Revered Speaker of Tenochtitlan, like his brother and grandfather were before him—cities as far away as the Maya lands pay him tribute, and at his command armies rise and kingdoms fall. All should fall before him, for is he not Tizoc-tzin? Is he not the man who channels Huitzilopochtli's power in the Fifth World? The sun rises at the edge of his blade!

But he lifts the sacrificial knife and there is barely even a glimmer, while his brother—reckless, foolhardy Teomitl, who's too soft, who's gone and married that peasant's daughter and raised her brother above his rightful place as the lowest of the three High Priests—shines like Tonatiuh Himself by his side.

-

16 (acatl – good night, midnight)

The conch shells blare once at the turn of the night, the hour that separates one day from the next, and Acatl rises from his mat alone and in silence.

Alone and in silence he eats a meal of thin flatbread and (cold) roasted peppers, savoring the bite and the burn of them as they fill his belly. Alone and in silence, he bathes himself in cold water (cold as the peppers had been) and forces a comb through the tangles in his long, wet hair.

He doesn't let himself remember hot meals with his family, doesn't let himself imagine gentle hands rubbing his shoulders or tilting his head back to comb his hair for him. He is High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, and here under the shroud of midnight that is all he'll ever be.