Eternal Dance

Love is like a dance eternal. 

The passion tied to your stamina. 

When you're worn out, you sit to recover and have a drink. 

Water or tequila, soda or beer, pick your poison. 

You conversate with music as your inspiration and your partner as the muse. 

The change in rhythm is the compliment of your soul. 

Laughter's echo is the sweet moments together. 

Sometimes the song doesn't suit your preference, but they sway in its moment. 

So you smile and encourage them to live it to their fullest. 

In the moment you hope it never does end. 

Death is a promise always around the bend. 

He was falling.

Cenotlatlacatl didn't scream—he laughed. Bitter, cracked, defiant. His eyes didn't search for salvation or sky. They focused only on Kamelotl's face—wide, stunned, still burning with hope.

The only family I ever had… and I tried to kill him.

The thought pierced through the wind in his ears. He thought of the gods, of the absurd cruelty of it all. That damn priest's face, grinning in victory.

Cenotlatlacatl lifted his hand, middle finger rising like a spear.

"Tēchcahua, chichimeh!" he shouted. Go ruin yourself, dog.

And then—he shimmered mid-fall. The air bent, the light cracked.

He disappeared.

A laugh escaped the shimmer in reality as the gods bore witness to his final defiance.

Kamelotl watched it all—watched the shimmer flicker like a ghost flame, and then vanish. His heart tightened. The only anchor he had in this chaos had just vanished like smoke.

He turned to the priest.

Without a word, he lunged. Grabbed the skull of the venomous priest in his claws, and twisted. The spine snapped free like a brittle root.

"The thing about bones is they crumble with enough force," he said, voice low.

"They also tend to be delicious to gnaw on, you rotten bastard."

From his chest, roots exploded—red and obsidian tendrils slamming into the body, crushing it into dust. A flurry of destruction, writhing like tentacles guided by grief.

He turned upward. The arc still loomed, the path to the next layer of Mictlan rising above.

Using his roots like climbing vines, Kamelotl began his ascent. As he passed the remnants of the seed pod, he felt something—a calling. The roots still clung to the bark.

He pulled them in.

They merged into his body, but they did not remain as they were. They twisted into sharp rose-like thorns along his limbs. A painful memory etched into flesh.

He climbed faster.

Above, the sky crackled with the remains of battle. He saw Camazotz fleeing—his obsidian wings trailing shadows. Huitzilopochtli soared after him, radiant with fire and fury, chasing the bat god away.

The remaining butterflies and bats scattered in all directions, retreating to their corners of the underworld.

Then, as Kamelotl reached the arc's edge, Huitzilopochtli turned.

Somewhere beneath the arc.

Beyond roots, beyond sound.

Where bones remember and the air forgets —

There is a space without beginning.

The gods do not speak here.

Even silence bows.

A single note breaks it — soft, trembling —

An ayotl is struck, the turtle shell sits on a tripod of obsidian. On the turtle shell are depictions of two skeletal figures dancing under the moon. Cempoalxochitl, owl feathers and bones decorate the shell all around. Children made of bones and held together by wind strike the melody into the air. 

And with it, she appears.

Mictecacihuatl.

She does not arrive.

She remains — as if the void has finally remembered its queen.

Her steps are not footsteps.

They are petals falling on obsidian.

She wears no crown here.

Only her true form:

Moonlight in mourning.

Death in gold.

A lover who has forgotten the taste of her name.

He is already there.

Mictlantecuhtli.

No trumpets. No fire.

Just his eyes — hollow, ancient, remembering.

He steps forward.

And the floor — a ribcage of worlds — hums beneath them.

She raises her hand.

He takes it.

And the alley of the moon opens.

They move.

Not as rulers.

Not as enemies.

But as two gods who still remember being something else.

As they spin, the music shifts — gently, imperceptibly.

The rhythm changes, the melody becomes more haunting. A voice is heard, an ancient soul weeping a singe from her very essence. The tune changes, slower, impactful, more of a voice from an ancient ghost. 

Her hips slow.

His hand falters.

And the weight of the lost pulls them inward. 

"Con este baile, bendíceme querida."

A whisper of sorrow brushes her ear.

He speaks:

"I never knew sorrow. Not truly."

"Until your heart stopped beating for eternity."

Then, a smirk.

A flicker of rhythm.

The teponaztli is struck, like wood proclaiming its ancient memories. 

He leans back.

Cool. Unbothered.

Death, when it dances with style.

"You still got it," she says.

"I always did," he replies.

They sway.

They spin.

And then she lets go —

The rhythm picks up speed, the children strike faster on the ayotl.

Her fingers crackle. Her dress lifts like smoke.

Her skull face glows.

Now she leads.

He follows — or tries.

She doesn't mourn.

She commands.

The dead stir.

Cempoalxōchitl burns along the edges of the floor.

The bones hum like violins.

She sings without sound:

"The world will always return to my arms." She proclaims, not in arrogance, just as a fact. 

And then — without warning —

A pulse. A riot. A laugh too loud for the dead to ignore.

And somewhere, far above this divine floor:

Kamelotl stomps.

Tail-hand thumping.

Roots flaring.

He heard the beat.

And he answers it.

Back in the chamber, the gods stop.

Mictecacihuatl's breath catches.

Mictlantecuhtli exhales what could almost be… a chuckle.

The music fades.

Only the last note of the ayotl lingers, like smoke in bone.

He bows.

She nods.

And in the quiet, she says:

"Let them dance. We've had our turn."

The rhythm continues.

Kamelotl's tail still thumps softly, echoing through the ashlight.

He turns his eyes upward.

And there—Huitzilopochtli is watching.

Behind him, the god upon the obsidian throne stirs once more.

A breath.

A smile.

And stillness again.

"What is one of Tlaloc's mutts doing here?"

Huitzilopochtli's voice slices like sunlight through obsidian.

"Shouldn't the likes of you be dragging humans to Tlalocan by a river somewhere?"

Kamelotl doesn't flinch.

His roots tighten.

"I'm here to free a soul from Tezcatlipoca," he replies.

"She's on this arc. And if anyone gets in my way…"

His roots begin to pulse.

Tail tapping.

A slow build of fire.

"Let's just say I won't be taking no for an answer."

The god laughs.

And with that laugh—thunder crashes.

Lightning, multicolored and furious, rains in spirals.

Kamelotl smiles up at the storm.

"If you want to take a soul that protects the sun," Huitzilopochtli says,

"That's fine. Are you willing to protect the sun in her place?"

Kamelotl pauses.

For once, he doesn't answer with rage.

He thinks.

Of Cenotlatlacatl falling.

Of the laugh that never ended.

Of the life he was never meant to live.

Then he grins.

"Willing?" he says.

"As long as I'm here, no one's gonna touch this floating tree."

But Huitzilopochtli's voice drops, old as the first dawn:

"But is that enough, child of obsidian?

What will you do after you free her?

Do you have a plan for yourself?

And what of the one who disappeared in battle?

You're so focused on this one thing…

but what comes next, child?"

Kamelotl didn't respond immediately.

He stood still—barefoot on the arc, roots thorned and trembling, petals still clinging to his limbs.

He looked up at the god, then down again…

to the shimmer where Cenotlatlacatl had vanished.

To the threads still pulsing with memory.

His voice came out soft. Uncertain.

"I don't know."

He swallowed.

"I don't want to be alone again."

He placed a hand on his own chest, over the tangled roots blooming from within.

"I don't want to be forgotten."

And then—he looked up.

With wide, wet eyes. Not defiant.

But true.

"Can you help me bring him back?"

The thunder calmed.

Even the lightning stopped dancing.

And in that hush, a god who had once been born from war…

did not laugh.Then he speaks softly—no thunder this time.

"I was born to slaughter my brothers and sister.

That was my purpose.

Not to love. Not to be loved. Just… to win."

He pauses.

"Don't become like me."

Kamelotl breathes deep.

Not because he knows the way.

But because someone must.

And this time,

His dance continues alone.