Under the moonlight the critters sing.
The frogs bellow out like a bass with no strings.
My heart does pound when I look upon your face.
The scent of your Obsidian hair, my blood quickens its pace.
Then an obsidian flash brings about my last breath.
Xōchiyāōtl, the flowery war pushes me to the arms of Death.
The sirens climb the cavity one mushroom cap at a time, their voices trailing behind them like a hauntingly beautiful bell on a dark, moonless night. The two carrying Kamelotl struggle at first—his weight an inconvenience, and his roots weren't as dormant as he was. They clung to his captors and writhed, swaying to the music. Thinking it would be more convenient to throw him onto the next cap, they just followed along with their urge. Which led to a scramble from instant regret, they jumped and flailed trying to catch him before he bounced off into the wrong direction.
"That was close!" One of them said after securing their victim. They glanced at each other and laughed. "That WAS fun!" The other exclaimed. They locked eyes and the next moment, Kamelotl was being flung once again.
Momentum becomes their game. Leap, toss, catch. One merman springs to the next cap, arms open, while the other hurls Kamelotl through the cavern air like an Ōlli. The ball used for Ōllamaliztli, a game with the objective of getting the ball through a hoop using your hips. He lands against ribs and thighs and laughing breath, then is flung again before gravity can finish its thought.
Once—only once—it seems they had misjudged the distance. Kamelotl slips, like a fish
flopping out of your hand in the rain. The mermen shriek—not in fear, but delight—and scramble through the air in a frantic flail of arms. Their panic paid off by snagging him just in time. They laugh harder for it, like children delighting in their gamble paying off.
Through all of it, Kamelotl does not stir.
No groan. No twitch. Not even snores escaped his mask. Only pollen, like fairy dust.
The sirens begin to whisper between throws. Is he enchanted? Cursed into slumber, eternally. The idea amuses them. Having found him on this isle in the realm of…
In the middle of their pondering. An interruption occurs.
At the precise moment their game reaches its crescendo—when Kamelotl's body seems to resemble the same arc he had been on before awakening to a fall, a sudden shadow breaks the light.
A flock of parrots plunge into the cavern, wings slicing the damp air. Talons hook into Kamelotl's limbs and shoulders, not gently, not cruelly—efficiently. In a single practiced motion they steal him from the sirens' entourage and surge upward, carrying him upwards, with mocking calls and insults. From the flock, pineapples and avocados start to fall upon their heads. Leading to raucous laughter to follow like a stone to accompany the falling fruit.
Below, shouts erupt. Anger. Frustration. Voices scrape the stone.
The parrots seem to glow and camouflage themselves with the lights that enter from outside.
Kamelotl does not stir.
Not a breath misplaced. Not a flutter of the eyelids.
Then the air thickens.
A voice booms down the hollow, vast enough to bend sound itself.
"My guest is not your plaything—unless you are willing, in turn, to be mine, and let me ride upon your backs through the Sea."
The laughter that follows is sharp and delighted, echoing long after the words have faded into silence.
And just as suddenly as it arrives, the presence withdraws.
The voice is gone.
The birds are gone.
Only the sirens remain below, staring upward, suddenly aware of their own existence.
The first thing Kamelotl hears is laughter—bright, unapologetic—and music that stirs the blood in his heart to pump rhythmically, before lifting his spirit. The rhythm reaches his feet first. They twitch, then shake, leading upwards to his hips and tail.
He realizes he is lying down.
When he sits up, the world tilts in protest. The room spins like a fragile leaf carried by the wind.
"How did they get the room to spin like this?" he wonders, clutching his head.
No… my head is the one spinning. My stomach hurts. I'm so thirsty.
"That's called being hungover," a kind yet mischievous voice announces to him. "You need water and greasy food. We have menudo to eat and pulque to drink, I suppose we have water as well. I always find that if you stay drunk you never have to face these repercussions. I I suppose if you'd like to feel better you should eat and then lie down once again."
This melodious voice instantly caught his attention so, Kamelotl end up turning too fast. The room punishes him for it. He squeezes his eyes shut until the nausea retreats.
A chuckle rises behind him.
He gathers what dignity he can find and turns slowly.
Flowers bloomed all around the young man standing before him, as if the earth itself had decided to celebrate his arrival. He wore a maxtlatl embroidered with petals and sacred herbs—tobacco, ololiuhqui, cacao—stitched not as ornament, but as a symbol of what had blossomed with him since his birth. A garland crowned his head and draped his neck, its blossoms glowing with impossible color, the kind that evades your vision directly like it doesn't want to be seen.
Across his torso he wore something like a tunic fashioned of petals, butterflies and what appeared to be caterpillars and cocoons. One fluttered its wings, then another, and Kamelotl realized they were alive, shifting and fluttering as though anxious for spring to arrive early, so they could once again dance in flower meadows.
He was lean, yet muscular in the way of dancers—strength honed by rhythm rather than violence. His body carried the quiet confidence of someone who knew dance itself was a weapon, and that he had never once lost a battle fought in its language.
His hair was wild, vine-like, braided with flowers. Blossoms bloomed within it, withered, fell away, and were born again—over and over—an eternal cycle of death and return playing out inches from his crown.
His skin held the warmth of sunlit bronze. His eyes were obsidian, deep and dark, yet they shone like a clear night sky scattered with stars—depth pretending to be stillness.
Joy lived in him.
His eyes softened as he looked at Kamelotl.
"I know you must have a lot of questions, it'll be easier for you to take in information when you've had your fill and your clarity has returned to you."
Xochipilli started to wither and all the living things on him fell off like leaves in Autumn. And he continuously shrank till he was in the form of a seed with roots sprouted that seemed to pull the seed into the ground out of sight.
The butterflies were left without a home. Simply flying out of the skull.