Tezcatlipoca

Noises spill from her cavern. Howls that shake the walls and sudden heavy silences that hang in the empty air and chill the heart. Splintered nails thrash into the ground with pounding rhythm. Flecks spray as incoherent words tumble from bloodied mouth.

She is alone and yet someone whispers in her ear. Of glory to the Mother. Of praise to rot and affliction.

She cannot see and yet she sees all too much. Reality echoed. Facets of her surroundings as a cacophony of images. A glint of gold.

She sings. But to all others, she screams.

---

When asked, the clan dragons say Tezcatlipoca just appeared one day. Some whispered of magic, others of a ruse, and some of a curse. Tlazolteotl, whom no one asked, remarked that dragons do not poof into existence and therefore the imperial was a figment of his own mind. Most do not follow this theory.

But all agree, where there was nothing was suddenly filled with a presence. A smooth and serpentine white body stood at the lair entrance. Tezcatlipoca had arrived to the Scarred Wasteland.

Tonatiuh, the clan matriarch, was not amused. Her twin guardians stood bodily between the new dragon and their charge. The grinning serpent mask glared down at Tezcatlipoca as a toneless voice seeped from within.

''White one with such a soul as yours, why are you here?''

Tezcatipoca bowed her great figure before the small fae, pressing pristine scales into the rot.

"I come to serve the great mother." Her whiskers twitched through the air, ''I am not as I seem to be at a glance.''

Without hesitation the imperial spread wide her arms to reveal the cluster of blood-red crystals marring her chest and throat. The mask wobbled as Tonatiuh nodded, frills rising in excitement.

''I am diseased.'' Tezcatlipoca whispered, ''Cast out.''

The sun glinted off flecks of blood-red crystal embedded in golden scales as the fae flared her wings to full, ''No young one.'' Tonatiuh tilted the mask in the barest of bows, ''You are blessed.''

''And you are home.''





Tezcatlipoca settled into a restful position in the lair. She placed a claw on her heart...and began to sing.




''The wolf? It wandered here from the Shifting Expanse*. Mother knows how it accomplished that. Perhaps it swam? We make beautiful music together. ''


*Gifted from the Thunder Shore lair.