The call woke him up.
He tried to ignore it, but it kept reaching out to him. Grumbling, he whispered it couldn't be him. His time was done. There was nothing he could help with. But the voice kept calling him. By name.
The old man tossed and turned on the mat for a moment, but it was no use. He had heard the call and now nothing would let him go back to sleep. Groaning, he shuffled away the rough cotton sheets and struggled to rise. Annoyed, he regarded the walls surrounding him, and wondered exactly what he was needed for. The World was different now, and had little use for legends and myths. What did the Old Star want? Reaching into the bag next to his bed of reeds, he drew out a small canteen, and took a long pull of a liquid that was equal parts coarsely processed cacao and arterial blood.
His thirst sated, he tugged at his best coat and prepared to see the sunrise. How long had it been, he wondered. As he let energy flow into his tired limbs, he took another drink and tried to focus on what the call was trying to tell him.
While it is not impossible for a god to choke on an offering, the circumstances surrounding such an event are usually spectacular. Coughing and struggling to clear his throat, he stumbled in the dark, rivulets of chocolate and blood dripping from his mouth into his unkempt beard. Curious, beady eyes opened around him in confusion, until he gave the signal to stop worrying and help him. As the shadows lent their aid, he wiped his mouth, swallowed properly, and hissed.
"A ver, a ver. ¿Quién fue el pendejo?"
The echoes of the call answered him, and he can't help but snort.
"The tongueless one? Ha! Fucking called it."
He remains silent, patiently listening as he hears words older than the empire he founded, older than humanity and the Earth itself.
"Carajo. Yes, I can imagine. Barely, but I can. This is big. Almost too big for me alone." He pauses for a second. "No. Pinche cabrón. Of course he had to make a mess so fucking big even he couldn't fix it." Another instant of silence. "What, don't you think I can do this? Chinga tu madre." But the call is inflexible. "Fine. Fine. If everybody wants to take their... pound of flesh..." he smiles with a mouth full of fangs, relishing the taste of the foreign expression that nevertheless sounds so wonderfully fitting. "...then I suppose it would be crass of me to deny them the chance."
An image begins forming in his mind's eye. A vast blue sea. Darkness dancing in the light. An impossible white ring hanging motionless in the sky.
His smile slightly softens as he traces the shoreline and surveys the white sands. He looks above, searching for his star to make sense of where the call is directing him. It takes but a moment, but when he does, his expression sours. Breaking off from the illusion, he takes another swig of his canteen, swirls the liquid in his mouth, and angrily spits the last, foul dregs. He tears off his soiled shirt, revealing his muscular physique, nearly untouched by age.
The East. They want him to go to the East. Oh, he'd go - there was no force that could stop him from claiming some sweet, overdue revenge over a puppet of the tongueless god... but he is the Lord of the West. He could go one way or the other, but that would only wake up and provoke the brute slumbering right next to him. Sure, they'd done some great things together, but... fuck! There is no way he won't want to join. He can't go to the East alone, and the call most likely knew. Groaning, he turns and sees the first, pale rays of the sun's light stretch into his little alcove, illuminating a wickedly-sharp maqahuitl.
With a last drink, he tosses the empty canteen on his bed. Reaching out, he hefts the heavy weapon and traces the sharp, serrated edge of the gold-bearing obsidian.
Fuck. He's going to have to wake up his bastard of a brother and convince him to join him for a hunt. Biting a curse, he can't help but chuckle. Well. At the very least they couldn't fuck this together. The feral smile creeps at the edge of his mouth. In the end, the tongueless one had bled them both, and the Lord of the East couldn't go to the Sealed End of the Four Seas without the Lord of the West's invite. A good hunt just like the old, horrible days.
The feathers of his coat fill with light and power, thrumming with all the colors of the rainbow. The scales of his mail shine with waving, dazzling patterns of gold and silver. Years shuffle off his frame and black seeps into his coiffed mane. He turns to a small alcove and pulls up the war paint. With the ease of experience, he traces the ancient markings on his countenance, and completes the look with a small nose stud. The beady eyes in the dark slither into the light, as their lord makes his choice. Walking into the sunlight, the Lord of Tula prepares for more than one fight.
Quetzalcoatl walks out into the Pyramid of the Sun, and looks to the East.
The jungle at the shores of the Usumacinta has changed little from the days of the Olmecs. Sure, every now and then there's some trace of human presence, but the jungle was a hellhole at the height of their power and it is a hellhole today. Striding into the darkness, Quetzalcoatl feels for the precious packages he carries and for his maqahuitl. Every now and then, he whispers a question to the snakes in the soil, and slowly their responses pour in, guarded and careful.
His goal isn't far. In fact, it's just a turn in a directions humans have no name for, and all of a sudden the jungle is more vibrant, tiny pinpricks of sunlight illuminating the green hell. Amber eyes flash from the darkness, and fanged mouths growl at the intrusion. Despite his own apprehension, the Lord of the West can't help but smile.
How long has it been since he last picked a fight with his asshole of a brother? Far too long. Quetzalcoatl may love his little creature comforts, the poetry and the wisdom of the cities of his soil, but he started as a hunter. The wind cries around him, warning of the prowling beasts surrounding him. He almost laughs. If so he decreed, the wind would rise in hurricane gales, tearing apart the canopy and bringing his quarry bellowing in fury straight at him.
But today is not the day two kill each other.
Every now and then he tosses strips of raw meat at the darkness, silencing the guardians for a few seconds. Tezcatlipoca must believe himself very cunning, but beasts are beasts, and ultimately, predictable. A lesson he should have fucking learned already from Cipactli. Quetzalcoatl follows along the trail of the jaguars and demons lurking in the darkness, holding his laughter in until he sees his brother's resting place.
The obsidian skull lies reverently in the remains of a plinth. The Lord of the West smiles, and opens one of the larger packages, seizing the squirming turkey with a deft, practiced hand. Savagely grinning, Quetzalcoatl heaves the maqahuitl, and in a single, merciless blow, rips apart the bird, coating the shining black skull in the blood and viscera of the bird.
As expected, Tezcatlipoca bursts forth, roaring in mindless fury.
Shadows vomit from the empty skull as the god's body knits itself into existence. All around the battlefield, there are roars and hisses, beasts fighting in the all-concealing darkness of the jungle.
"Hideputa," the darkness whispers.
Quetzalcoatl hides his sneer beneath a smile. "Temper, temper, brother. What would Mother say?" Great shadowcats lunge at the glittering Feathered Snake, yet he bats them away one by one. "How's the leg, by the way?"
A great slash of living darkness rends the air, opening a gash at the Lord of the West's side. "Fucking snake… I'll make your hide into my next belt!"
Clutching the wound at his side, Quetzalcoatl chuffs. "You'll have to catch me first. Not easy when I could smell you coming from Aztlan!"
Tezcatlipoca materializes fully with a hateful bellow, wrapping a curse around Quetzalcoatl's leg and charging. Maqahuitls clash and shatter with a deafening blast, and both brothers launch forward in a brutal struggle. With a hissing gesture, Quetzalcoatl summons a wave of burning globes, slamming into Tezcatlipoca's chest.
But the Lord of Night is not stopped. With a swift kick, he smashes the Feathered Serpent into the jungle floor, and leaps forward, dagger in hand. Quetzalcoatl struggles to push him away, but neither his own strength nor the windstorm he calls forth allow him to dislodge his brother from on top of him. The Smoking Mirror slashes and pierces where he's able to, and whispers furious invocations to the power of darkness.
"We both… fucking suck... eh?" Quetzalcoatl rasps as his brother's blade inches ever closer to his neck. "How many times have we danced like this without managing to win against the other?"
"If you don't count, neither do I, pendejo."
And with that, Tezcatlipoca slashed Quetzalcoatl's aorta.
There is a moment of silence. The Lord of the East looks in disgust as his brother's corpse dissolves into ashes the jungle greedily devours in an instant. Snorting, he does not look back even as lines of light take shape in the air behind him. The Lord of Sorcery, they called him once. King of Obsidian and Master of Jaguars. Aztec god of the night. And he can't even manage to kill his idiot brother properly.
Reforming his body in a wave of fire, Quetzalcoatl returns with a chuckle and a new maqahuitl.
Groaning in fury, Tezcatlipoca plunges into the battle once more.
It takes them the entire day to stop fighting.
Both end up battered, bruised and bleeding. Their servants inch forward, requesting permission to begin healing the two gods. Neither brother speaks, leaning against opposite trees as their shells are slowly mended into a semblance of shape.
In the end, it's Quetzalcoatl who speaks first. "So."
Tezcatlipoca glares silently.
Quetzalcoatl smiles again, but this time it's a softer, more genuine smile. "We really are fucking brothers, aren't we?"
Tezcatlipoca glares harder. Quetzalcoatl doesn't know how he manages to glare with such sallow, sunken eyes, but he somehow does. Pulling at his discarded packages, he draws out a larger clay cup, and pushes it towards his brother. The shadows drag it to the Lord of Darkness' grasp, who raises it to his nose and takes a long, knowing drag of its scent. With an equally long sigh, he takes a pull of the contents, and lies back in satisfaction.
"Now this is the good stuff. Not that awful turkey shit you poured on me a while ago."
"I'll have you know it's delicious. Sacrifice is sacrifice."
"That's because you don't fucking taste it. You just swallow, you overgrown worm."
Quetzalcoatl takes it with a nod and a chuckle.
"Why did you come?"
"An opportunity has presented itself."
Tezcatlipoca stops for a second. He wants to laugh and punch his idiot brother back to his stupid city and his pyramid just for suggesting they have some life yet. But, as he sips the warm blood in the cup, he wonders. Quetzalcoatl, whatever his faults, is no fool. He hasn't had a plan in literal centuries, always fearing the next time they rose, it would be the last. So if now he's come, well. No harm in just hearing. And if he got too mouthy, he'd just stave in his head again and show him how much of a moron he's being. Win-win.
"A servant of the tongueless god fucked up. A chance to reclaim some old power has opened up."
Rolling his eyes, Tezcatlipoca motions to carry on. "It's quite simple. The Old Star is gathering… not allies, I suppose. Bodies to throw at a new front, a monster of the tongueless one who would try to mold the world we made to his disgusting vision. We'd be in charge of breaking one link of the chain this monster has forged across time and claim its power for our own."
Sipping quietly, the Lord of the East snorts. "You believe him?"
"Yes. It's a good chance to engrave our legend into the future. Don't understand what happened yet. Some sort of deformed Tzitzimitl attacked the lands of the West. Busted many of the tongueless one's barriers, began changing the rules." Sighing, Quetzalcoatl purses his lips. "Brother, I know we've fought long, but I…"
"Stuff it."
Quetzalcoatl sags for a second until Tezcatlipoca rises, reforms his weapon, and strides over. "When are we leaving?"
The Lord of the West stops. "I thought you'd be a bit harder to convince."
Tezcatlipoca shrugs. "You're the one who got the fucking brains. If you think this is real and that there's profit to be made, I say we go for it." Pulling his brother up, he swings his maqahuitl to his neck. "Doesn't even matter if we find nothing – I'll just kill you and take my share."
Quetzalcoatl snorts. Yep. That's his brother alright.
"Gather your armies and join me at my city. Together, we'll march upon Okeanos."
Thanks to LostHereAndThere for writing this!