This choice: Itztli, an aztec noble during the last years of the empire • Go Back...Chapter #4Itztli's Premonition by: Kilbil   Tenochtitlán was lost.
Itztli had no reason to know this so certainly, waking up in his reed mat bed in the waking hours of the morning, but deep in his bones, he knew this to be true. As the rabbit jumps around in its drunken stupor, so too did Itztli have unwavering faith in his premonition. He could feel it: the hour the Fifth Sun would no longer rise was at hand.
For over a hundred years, starting from the day the war god and current sun, Huitzilopochtli, had sent their ancestors to find an eagle perched on a nopal cactus with a serpent in its beak, the Land of the White Herons had prospered and expanded under the rightful rule of the People of the Sun. As the chosen people of Huitzilopochtli, it was the divine right of the Aztec Empire to spread and conquer, to bring light to the darkness that surrounded them. To ensure the world would live, to nourish it by blood, they would spread across the land and bring enlightenment to the nearby tribes. In the name of seeing another 52 years pass, they would .
But in time, all this would end. It had come to him in a dream: impressive vessels coming from a land completely unknown to them, bringing with them a pale race of men dressed in strange, fanciful clothes. Initially received as gods, they would bring with them pestilence and plagues unparalleled in all of their history. They would turn their subjects against them, and with great brutality and weapons far beyond what they themselves possessed, the pale men would bring an end to their world once and for all.
Though there were no catastrophic earthquakes that followed, there was no doubt in Itztli's mind as to who the pale people were: they were the Tzitzimimeh, the stars in the night sky themselves, who had finally succeeded in slaying the fifth sun, Huitzilopochtli, and had descended upon the Aztecs under the orders of Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the moon, to slay all of humanity. One of the gods must have sent this premonition to him as a message, a warning of what was to come. But the noble had no idea what to do with this newfound knowledge.
He could seek out an audience with the emperor, Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, and warn him of what was to come. However, though he was a great and fearsome rule, single-handedly responsible for bringing the Aztecs to unprecedented heights, he was too curious for his own good. In his dream, Xocoyotzin had invited the pale people into his palace as guests of honor and had showered them with questions, and the end was rewarded with death and disgrace. Furthermore, though he had faith and reverence for the gods, he was not given to believing in such things as premonitions.
Perhaps, it was inevitable that the world's end would be at hand so soon. Nothing is meant to last forever, and destruction was a natural process, a means of ensuring transformation and regeneration in the wake of disaster. But now, more than ever, the light roared. Itzli could not simply sit by and wait while disaster was at hand, and he knew precisely where to go to begin to avert it.
Itzli got out of his bed and started dressing himself. There had been rumors circulating around the city of a self-described magician, who had claimed to see the future, and was preparing a means of bringing back the race of giants that had once prospered under the First Sun to combat it. Most had dismissed him as a raving lunatic, but given the noble's own experiences, there was reason to give weight to his words. Perhaps, if there was someone large enough to single-handedly give the blood needed for Huitzilopochtli to fend off Coyolxauhqui and the stars singlehandedly, or who could drive off the pale people with their might alone, there was a chance the Aztecs could thrive for many more centuries to come.
He had said that he required a volunteer, someone that he could use as a vessel to transform them into one of the giants of legend. In that case, Itzli knew that when the time came, his first choice for who would be blessed with such a transformation would be:  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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