Nightmares And Butterflies

Entre la noche que vengo con mi bien estar. 

Te quiero ver, y creo que hasta más que aller. 

We were divided and a glimpse is all I desire. 

But death isn't kind, she is impartial like burning fire. 

All consuming and always present at all moments. 

At least she's trustworthy, her eternal promise always the same. 

One day we can enjoy the stars in the night sky again. 

With the souls of our dead friends, held in her cold embrace. 

The stillness ruptured.

Not by sound — but by scent.

Something sweet. Rotten. Like flowers left too long on a grave.

Cenotlatlacatl lifted his head first.

He smelled pollen. Ash-laced, acidic.

And it was falling.

Not from the pod — from above.

Tiny flakes, glowing orange-red like embers, spiraled downward.

They shimmered like memory, but burned like venom.

The roots around the pod shuddered.

Then cracked.

Then began to rot.

Kamelotl scrambled to his feet, claws bared.

"What the fuck is that?"

Cenotlatlacatl didn't answer.

Because he saw them.

Wings. Hundreds of them.

Monstrous butterflies. 

Butterflies of ash and ember.

Their wings were woven from funeral shrouds and old prayers.

Their bodies glowed like coal waiting to burst.

And on each back, hunched and trembling, rode a figure with ribcages for torsos and mouths sewn into their hands.

More monstrosities had arrived.

And on the largest of them — its wings dragging clouds behind it like veils — stood a figure with teeth for a tongue and silence for eyes.

A horrid Priest of Xibalba. 

Up above, a scream cracked the air — not human.

Camazotz— the obsidian winged bat, who's shadow drinks from the stars.

His wail echoed like the tortured souls of Xibalba.

Below him, drums answered.

War drums.

Steady. Divine. Like a god's heartbeat.

Huitzilopochtli.

They collided in the sky with no stars —

lightning and flame entwined, with wind and screeches carrying forth sonic waves. 

Chaak's roar spiraled through the clouds like a hurricane's cry, his staff crackling with serpentine lightning.

Each bolt carved spirals of pressure that knocked ash and soul from the air.

Across him, Huitzilopochtli flew like a jaguar lit by flame. His form shimmered — not entirely man, not entirely bird — but wrapped in war paint, blood, and divine pulse. His obsidian drumbeat resounded not through air, but through bone.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The sound cracked through the arc itself.

Between them, the warriors of the sun arrived.

A swarm of hummingbirds, each one glowing with solar fury, their wings moving faster than sight — carving sigils of light through the mist. They sliced through the falling pollen with trails of sacred heat.

From below, the Tlakatlālmetl's wings fluttered, making the sound of death whistles blowing— and bats responded.

A storm of darkness surged upward, the children of Camazotz. Their wings beat in unison, sending waves of necrotic wind spiraling toward the hummingbirds.

The sky split.

Light vs. rot.

Fire vs. shadow.

The hummingbirds crashed into the bats mid-air — feathers against fang. The sound of the collision was not screeching — but singing. War songs. Praise songs. The sacred hymns of warriors who had died on the battlefield and returned as guardians of the Sun's path.

A hummingbird ignited a bat's skull with a single kiss of flame. Another was swallowed whole by a Tlakatlālmetl, whose body was no longer ash — but molten marrow. One of the grief-born rode a hummingbird down like a comet, stabbing it with memory-thorns.

Cenotlatlacatl looked up.

"Is this what war between the gods looks like? It's awe inspiring, horrifying."

Kamelotl didn't answer.

Because something darker was descending now.

Not with speed — but with certainty.

A shape. A priest. Standing atop the largest butterfly, its wings dragging clouds and grave dust behind it like veils.

The priest's mouth didn't move — but the smoke around him whispered. 

Hisses leaked from the priest's smoke, coiled and venomous— like whispers from lost souls. They spoke of an illbegotten fate, of joining them in their struggle to escape. 

The mist turned red.

The pollen was thick now, clinging to their skin like molten lace.

Every breath stung.

The first monstrosity slammed into the arc, shoulder-first, splitting a seam in the pod wall.

Another shrieked, tearing at the root-flesh with hands that bled memory.

Cenotlatlacatl roared, claws out, rage pure and primal.

He slammed one grief-born against the shell and ripped its face-thread apart.

Kamelotl slashed with his obsidian leg, his tail snapping like a serpent, fighting back with everything he was.

Then—

A skeletal hand burst from the pod's floor.

It grabbed Cenotlatlacatl's leg.

Long. Blackened. Thorns of bone.

And pulled.

He screamed, struggling —

but the hand yanked him toward the crack below, opening into the next layer of Mictlan.

Until—

Kamelotl.

Roots flaring from his chest, wrapping around his brother's waist.

The tug-of-war began.

Death below.

Brotherhood above.

And this time —

Brotherhood won.

The skeletal hand broke off with a snap.

The roots reeled Cenotlatlacatl in.

They gasped. Panting. Bruised.

More creatures swarmed above.

The pod was rotting through.

Kamelotl pointed upward.

The arc still floated there — flickering.

"Climb?"

Cenotlatlacatl nodded.

"No other way."

As they started to climb, hummingbirds poured in from the arc. A fight against the bats ensued, the butterflies weren't safe from the warriors of the sun either. At this moment the priest dove down towards the brothers bonded in sin. He slipped past warriors and caught hold of Kamelotl. Spider webs shot out and bound him like a cacoon, he didn't even have time to mutter a protest. 

Cenotlatlacatl jumped off the arc and wrestled the hold on kamelotl. The repugnant smell of death masked by a smoky smell of copal coming off the priest. "You are doomed to fail, just like any other challenger of Xibalba and the holy Matron Ix Kame."

Cenotlatlacatl focused on his ashlight cempoalxochitl and made it burn bright. "We shall see who fails, the living, or you dead that are but a hinderance." The priest recoiled from the light and in that moment Cenotlatlacatl took the chance to claw at the spider silk cacoon. Kamelotl, able to freely use his appendages again, showed a face of relief. 

Then horror as he saw Cenotlatlacatl being pulled off the butterfly and heading straight to the ground.