"Laying on a rooftop looking at the night sky.
Do you ever look up wondering why
The stars are surrounded by the dark yet we see their light.
They're more than fascinating embers in the sky they are memory of the plight.
So activate your dreams while you lay your head.
If you're not careful the darkness in between will come to give you dread."
They drifted through stars.
Not walking, not sailing, not pulled by wind—but cradled in a hush that defied movement. The river beneath them rippled with silver threads, bending light like reeds in still water. It was a moment not meant for mortals, yet there they were—two broken souls floating between realms on a current spun from the forgotten veins of creation.
Cenotlatlacatl stared into the light for a long while before finally speaking.
"To think we were trying to kill each other not so long ago."
Kamelotl blinked slowly. His gills fluttered once, twice, like serpents flicking at air that didn't exist here. He turned his head toward Cenotlatlacatl, one eye round and unreadable, the other glinting faintly with ashlight.
"I haven't made up my mind whether I should drag you to Tlaloc or not," he said flatly.
A moment passed. Then, quieter: "These shimmering lights really are beautiful."
Cenotlatlacatl tilted his head. He studied the boy-beast beside him. And then it struck him—he didn't know what the stars were.
He wasn't admiring them for what they symbolized—ancestry, memory, destiny. He was admiring them for what they were to him now. Light.
Not gods. Not signs. Not maps or stories. Just beautiful, floating lights in the darkness.
It was the most innocent thing Cenotlatlacatl had ever heard. And somehow, that made it unbearable.
"They're called stars," he finally said.
"But they're more than that."
"They are the Centzonhuitznáhua—the four hundred southerners. The brothers Huitzilopochtli slaughtered when he was born from his mother's womb in full armor. Their bodies were flung into the sky, torn apart until they could no longer remember why they wanted to kill him. Now they just... float."
Kamelotl tilted his head. "He killed his brothers?"
"Yes," said Cenotlatlacatl. "And his sister, too. Her name was Coyolxauhqui. The Moon."
A silence passed.
"But not all stars are gods," he added. "Some are… memories. Of people. Of beasts. Of things long buried."
"The night sky is a giant obsidian shard—the Smoking Mirror. It reflects the memories of gods, yes—but also the wishes of monsters, the names of men, the shame of the dead, the triumph of the forgotten. Everything that once burned… still flickers there."
"So that's why it feels… full," Kamelotl said, eyes wide.
"Because it is. And somewhere in that reflection, Tezcatlipoca sits. Not watching. Just… waiting. Dreaming."
"I guess I owe him gratitude for giving my mother her wish. Granting me life and even through that action, in a sense granting you life as well. It's strange, you barely received a name and I still only have a title. Among these beautiful stars, yet we are not worthy to be here among them. Maybe after these trials, when I can say her name to free her. I think Tezcatlipoca has shown mercy in the way only he can. He resides there among these stars on obsidian and smoke."
"And what about those dark places? The ones with nothing?"
"Those are where the Tzitzimimeh dwell. The star-hunters. They are the daughters of the Smoking Mirror, bone-skinned and cold. They come when the sun forgets to rise. They eat the unremembered."
"They don't hate us," he added. "They just… correct us."
"They are duty bound and hungry. It is not about malice, or good and evil. They are merely a part of balance. For the stars to shine they must be there to remind us that there is always light, even in the darkness."
The boat trembled. The stars stopped shimmering. One by one, they blinked out. The current shifted sideways. The sky cracked—not with thunder, but with bone.
A fissure opened between constellations, and from it fell a shape. Not glowing, not star-like, but void-colored, with wings of ash and a halo of whispering teeth.
She hovered inches above the boat. Her presence pressed against the sky itself, shattering silence into fragments of fear. Shadows crawled across the surface of the river, and even the stars above seemed to recoil from her shape.
The light from the cempoalxōchitl started to shine brighter. They had felt paralyzed, admittedly it was from fear and the pressure of her very presence. Now with the shining cempoalxochitl they were able to move once again.
"Kamelotl, even if we don't have the right to be remembered among these stars. Maybe our deaths here will engrave itself between the shining lights. On the obsidian mirror of Tezcatlipoca at least. So if we must, we fight to our last breath."
Kamelotl readied himself, taking the position of a hound ready to pounce.
She did not attack she just observed and soon what escaped her lips was a simple laugh.
Her laugh came like fire dying—crackling and hissing.
"Well, well, well… even if you haven't earned a name, or the right to speak ours… it seems Father wasn't wrong to grant your soul a chance to roam the mortal plain," she whispered. "Amusing as you are, I'll give you a chance, little ones."
"Answer my query, and I will grant you safe passage to your destination. Otherwise, you will enter the waters of your destiny like any other soul—unseen, unsung, unfinished."
She unspooled a thread of shadow and spoke:
"What swims through ash, embers is all that's left in eternity… I was born to be your day. I once was singing and shining away. I now lay in silence, much to my dismay. Now surrounded by bones is where I lay. Speak my name… or on the Smoking Mirror, forgotten you will stay."
Cenotlatlacatl looked to Kamelotl. They nodded once. Together, they said:
"The sun."
The stars trembled. The river groaned. And for a heartbeat, even the Tzitzimitl was silent.
Then—she laughed. A cackle like a mirror cracking.
The river turned thick and dark. The stars no longer shimmered.
She raised her hand—and brought it down.
CRACK.
The ferry shattered. They were pulled into the river. And when they resurfaced, she was gone.