Chapter Text
Citlali.
The Great Shaman of the Masters of the Nightwind.
Feared among the tribespeople for her otherworldly powers, awe-inspiring in the rumours surrounding the curse of her immortality, the notorious Granny Itztli...
...was a tour guide today.
A woeful position for someone of her station (no offense, Mualani), especially since she was meant to be having the day to herself for some very precious reading time (interrupted for the third time this week, thank you very much!)
It might’ve been excusable if that was the only thing going wrong today, but nooo– for some reason, her so-called Very-Important-Guest had decided to investigate some strange energy inside a cave and now she was a very annoyed and very lost tour guide.
Citlali groaned to herself, summoning Citlalin to flop onto while she let the source of her current headache wander around the fog to try and figure out how to return to Masters of the Night Wind settlement.
“Any luck yet, Archon?” she groused.
Ah, yes. Did she mention that? The guest that she was chaperoning was not just any guest but the most powerful figure in all of Natlan herself!
Already out of sight, a thoughtful hum sounded from the mist somewhere to her left.
“The fog is making things difficult, but I think there’s a shift in the elemental energies in this direction... if I keep following along it...”
“Probably,” Citlali muttered, pulling a light novel out of her carry pouch. She’d already read the second volume of Mirage Warriors a dozen times before, but she didn’t have the foresight to bring any others. Thankfully the cavern was alight with Phlogiston crystals so she could read even if the area was void of colour.
She should be helping, but really, it was Mavuika’s fault that they were stuck here in the first place. Besides, the Archon seemed fine enough. Citlali could still hear her footsteps pacing through the fog, as she mumbled some indecipherable words to herself.
“Just ask me if you need any help,” Citlali called out to her reluctantly.
“I think I’ve almost got it,” came Mavuika’s distant response. Citlali waited another twenty minutes before she snapped her book shut with a sigh.
“Ugh, alright, I’m coming,” she grumbled, walking over to where she heard Mavuika’s voice last, barely managing to avoid tripping over several concealed rocks in her annoyance.
Eventually, she found the Archon sitting down surrounded by several pleased-looking Monetoo while she appeared to be tinkering with a little wooden saurian. Mavuika smiled up at her briefly before setting the wooden saurian upright and onto a painted pathway.
“It took me a while to find the right saurian,” Mavuika said brightly. “But these guys helped.”
Citlali furrowed a brow. “The right Saurian?”
Almost as soon as she asked, she noticed another wooden Saurian on the ground and approached it curiously, before letting out a gasp as her proximity in the fog revealed at least fifty other similar Saurians scattered around and piled on top of each other.
“You didn’t try them all, did you?” she looked back at Mavuika in bewilderment. Mavuika shook her head with a smile.
“I just played a little game with the Monetoo and they showed me,” she said cheerfully, following the wooden Saurian that had lit up with a pulsing energy that dispelled the fog around it, now steadily moving along the tracks.
“Huh... well at least you figured something out,” she muttered, crossing her arms as she followed behind with the Monetoo. “Last time I found a couple of tribe members wandering around in one of these areas, they just about lost their minds trying to get out of the fog.”
Mavuika glanced back at her with a grin. “Perhaps they gave up too soon. Puzzles are fun.”
“Getting stuck in the colourless mist isn’t exactly a normal concept of fun, Archon...” Citlali huffed. “Some people get stuck in these for days.”
“Is that so?” Mavuika hummed thoughtfully. “Well, that wouldn’t have happened to us.”
“You sound a little too sure of yourself there...” Citlali deadpanned. Mavuika laughed lightly, the rich sound bouncing off the rock walls of the cavern.
“I’m the Archon,” she said simply, as if that statement explained everything.
And maybe, to many, Mavuika’s confidence was inspiring. The Archon had fast built a reputation for herself in terms of how hard she worked and how competent she was at just about everything under the sun. The whole of Natlan had been completely awestruck by her ever since she won the Pilgrimage and reclaimed her Archon title, crushing her opposition with outlandish differences in power and skill. Yae Publishing House had already released a whole comic book series about her, telling grand stories of her heroic feats in the past.
But to Citlali, Mavuika reminded her of those boring, too-perfect, self-insert light novel protagonists. Obnoxiously good at everything and way too positive.
On cue, Mavuika’s face brightened again as she turned to Citlali. “Besides – you’re here, aren’t you? The Great Shaman, herself. I couldn’t ask for better.”
Citlali averted her eyes, chewing the inside of her cheek. “I did nothing but read. You did all the work,” she muttered.
“You believed in me. That’s enough.”
Briefly Citlali considered rebuffing that point, but in the next moment, the little wooden saurian reached the end of the track, and the Monetoo floated over to the rock structure at the end to paint it and dispel the fog. The two of them exhaled in relief as their visions were immediately restored to normal and the air in the cavern cleared.
“Chief Biram owes me big time,” Citlali grumbled to herself, squinting into the bright sunlight as she stepped out of the entrance to the cavern.
His ‘matters of crucial importance’ to attend to had better be damn important for her to get stuck in some colourless mist for... at least an hour? Gods, she didn’t even know how long it had been.
With another sigh, she started to walk back towards the tribe, barely glancing back to see if Mavuika was following.
Unfortunately for her, their progress back to the settlement was still much slower than she would have liked it to be. The sweltering heat of the midday sun made her more irritable than usual, being relieved only by the occasional breeze sweeping over the lofty clifftops of the Tezcatepetonco Range. And her visitor...
Abruptly she spun on her heel, pursing her lip when she saw that once again, Mavuika was spending an awfully long time dawdling on their journey, bright eyes scanning everywhere, from the vibrant graffiti on the cliffsides to the ancient structures of Ochkanatlan in the distance.
“Archon...” Citlali crossed her arms, hoping her tone was still pleasant. “We won’t get to the tribe until sundown if you intend to stop every few minutes.”
The woman turned to her gracefully, striking red hair a billowing flame in the wind, her upbeat countenance unfazed. “Forgive me. It’s... been a long time.”
Citlali sighed. Politeness for its own sake was something that she had stopped caring about long ago. Still, she had not lost all sense of decorum. This was the new Pyro Archon after all, and she was admittedly curious about the woman’s circumstances.
“Understatement of the century.” Citlali commented dryly. “Not many people can say they’ve crossed five hundred years into the future.”
The Archon shrugged. “Not many people have lived as long as you have either, ‘Granny Itztli’.”
Citlali barely flinched, narrowing her eyes at the woman. “What else have you heard about me?”
The way Mavuika smiled at her was small and secretive, but not unkind. “Plenty about how you are the most powerful shaman in the Masters of the Night Wind in at least… the past fifty years? If not longer.”
“...Probably at least sixty. But uh. Right. The Sacred Flame,” Citlali shot back, her voice dropping low as she muttered to herself. “I don’t think there was any Archon I got on the wrong side of...”
A laugh burst out of Mavuika’s mouth then, warm, rich, and full of mirth.
“Relax. You’ve done a lot for Natlan. Everyone’s been very grateful, including me.”
Thankfully, Mavuika seemed to take the hint that Citlali wanted to get back as soon as possible, so she quickened her pace while asking Citlali many things about the Masters of the Night Wind of the present day. Questions ranging from divination techniques to historical records that Citlali found interesting. And Citlali was begrudgingly impressed with how much Mavuika knew, considering she was originally of the Huitztlan tribe.
A whole crowd of tribespeople gathered at the village entrance near the grand archway, having heard that their new Archon was coming to visit. And Citlali watched as Mavuika greeted everyone with a warm smile, acquainting herself with half the tribe in the next hour. The whole village was abuzz with excited chatter well throughout the afternoon and over dinner where Chief Biram returned in time to hold a feast in honour of Mavuika’s first visit.
It was easy to see how the Archon had gained the fond moniker of ‘Natlan’s Sun,’ as she gathered people in with her warmth and radiant smile.
Citlali could only observe wryly from a distance as Mavuika immediately became significantly more popular with her tribespeople than she was, a flame that captivated irresistibly, where she remained an unapproachable star in the distance.
Mavuika turned to her then, locking eyes with her from across the room at Chief Biram’s house. And then, she flashed that radiant solar-charged smile in her direction, as though Citlali was the most important person in the room to her in that moment.
And she knew already that Mavuika must give that look to everyone – that it was all part of her natural charisma as a leader to make everyone feel like they mattered. And still, despite herself, Citlali had to avert her eyes with a scoff to suppress the warmth creeping onto her cheeks.
That was the first time she properly encountered that heroic Archon who proved herself by her immense power and determination both five centuries ago and today.
The Sun of Natlan bearing the Ancient Name Kiongozi.
Mavuika.
* * *
Citlali could remember the exact position that she was standing on the day that Mavuika emerged from the Sacred Flame.
She had actually learned about it from the Wayob – a startling revelation through the obscuring smoke that she hastened to inform the current Pyro Archon.
As it turned out, he already knew and had arranged to gather together the leaders of Natlan’s tribes. And so, Citlali found herself part of the gathering too.
“You’re really going to just hand her the title of Pyro Archon?” Citlali muttered to the aged warrior, walking a step behind him as they exited the Speakers’ Chamber and moved to the Stadium area.
When he had confirmed the news to her, Citlali felt nothing but skepticism and worry. Ehecatl was getting older, but he was a reliable leader. This woman... well, who knew what she would do with the present day Natlan.
Ehecatl smiled back at her placidly, his calm demeanour ever present. “You know that’s not how things work in Natlan.”
They gathered in the stadium, waiting in the stands as Ehecatl ascended to the Archon’s seat. And then, the Archon raised his arms towards them, lifting his voice:
“Warriors of Natlan — heed the call of life...”
The familiar words resounded powerfully throughout the arena, never failing to stir Citlali’s heart no matter how many times she had heard them before. Straightening up and standing tall, Citlali and the other tribal chiefs began to recite in response.
"We are the inheritors of memory and legend,
Those who grew along sun and wind...”
Every solemn line of the Ode of Resurrection fell from their mouths by heart, as the Sacred Flame almost seemed to glow and pulse with life as though resonating with their words. The air in the stadium seemed to charge and Citlali’s heart pounded in anticipation.
“...That is Natlan’s fire, the lifeblood of our nation.”
The Sacred Flame crackled and glowed brighter, the roar of the fire intensifying until Citlali’s hair stood on end. Sparks flew out from the flame, until one shot out like a tiny ball of fire into the sky, high above the centre of the stadium. It remained suspended there for a long moment, glowing bright until suddenly it started hurtling towards the ground, growing in size as it fell like a meteor.
The fireball struck the centre of the stadium ground forcefully, the impact sending ripples of immense energy through the air, causing them to stagger. Smoke and dust flew everywhere, clouding their vision before dissipating slowly from the stadium, until it eventually revealed a figure crouched on the ground.
Citlali watched with bated breath as Ehecatl leapt down from his Archon’s seat, landing smoothly in front of the figure who straightened up slowly.
His sharp eyes inspected her form, unmarked and unblemished by the flame, still clothed in garments preserved from several centuries past.
“Former Pyro Archon, Mavuika,” Ehecatl announced in a loud voice. “Natlan welcomes you.”
A terse silence fell thick in the stadium. And then the woman finally lifted her head, her bright sunset eyes full of fire as she stared down the Archon before her.
“Fight me.”
The rough challenge was met with a round of hushed murmurs as Ehecatl returned her gaze unflinchingly. And then– he laughed.
“I look forward to it,” he said warmly. “Once your strength has returned.”
The woman frowned slightly. “I don’t know what you–”
Citlali gaped as Ehecatl stepped forward and pushed the woman’s shoulder firmly, making her stagger backward and fall onto the ground. She blinked up at him in surprise, her brow knitted in consternation as though in disbelief about what just happened.
“You’ve spent five hundred years without a body... give yourself a break,” he chuckled, reaching his hand out to her.
Mavuika’s features smoothed out suddenly, a sheepish smile dawning on her face. She laughed heartily as she took his offered hand. “Alright, alright... thank you.”
“Pyro Archons...” Citlali muttered to herself, after Ehecatl briefly introduced Mavuika to each of them and led her back to the Weary Inn to recuperate.
*
Three days later, Mavuika challenged Ehecatl again and won, impressing the older man with her tenacity.
One week later, the next Pilgrimage of the Return of the Sacred Flame was held. Mavuika triumphed over every contestant and the Abyss in a show of power that was monumentally unmatched.
Ten days later, Mavuika was officially instated as the new Pyro Archon of Natlan, bestowed with the Ancient Name that Ehecatl had willingly given up with a proud smile.
And then, two weeks later, after Kiongozi Mavuika reclaimed her Ancient Name and visited the Tribes of Natlan, she began forging ahead with her present day plans to crush the Abyss.