Though I had agreed amongst my selves that it would be Rhia's dominant personality that was allowed to travel this time around (the better to ... adjust to the interesting dynamics of working with... well, that's moot now); the gloom sparked the foul mood that has plagued Anann and I since a year prior. The children barely get to leave the mansion due to our fears that my faerie blood in them will be enough to trigger the trance that has fallen over any other fae around the city. Even now, it's haunting tendrils tug at me to disappear into it and it takes a nip at my ear from Ann to distract me.
Ben and Tal ... had not changed in the slightest. The others were greeted with smiles and pleasantries while I was greeted as their tool to be used because ... well ... neither of them could politic their way out of a shallow pit with steps. The backhanded compliments and the fact that I was no one's ... mm. It stuck with me, burrowed under my skin to fester much like the mist that cloyed at my body as we walked into the arena meant to house the contestants for the Sun.
The Sun ... I regretted my promise to aid Tal in her bid for that position. It had been made before Cairo, before Norway, and it had been made before I could rationally think of my opinion. Perhaps given years, decades to grow and mature Tal would become the sort of Sun the Teotl needed - but not now. She shares the same mortal flaws that the rest of the Band and I still hold... but that ... this is thoughts for another reality, one where I thought my promises beforehand.
I kept my promise to her in my own way. Simpering to her and catering to her need would have weakened her. Trials of Calm do not make a leader - adversity does. Sacrifice does. Stripped of all your crutches and finding that spark inside makes one a leader. So ... that is what I did. She would accuse me of betrayal, of breaking my oath but that's because there's a two thousand year difference in our philosophies. She lives in a time where such leaders like the Sun are ... distant ideals. They're grand to strive for, sure, but she doesn't truly understand the impact they have on the world like I do. I remember when my world lived and died on the Morrigan's whims, or the Dagda's trysts. Where what you want and what you need are two terrible differences that rarely could be molded into one perfect union.
Does she understand that becoming the Sun means spending every day fighting back the tides of whatever evil the Teotl battle constantly? Then to die at the end only to be reborn anew to repeat the cycle? That whoever is placed to that position should be the strongest candidate, not the one I promise to help before my memories are truly returned?
But again, musings for another lifetime. Things were tense as a battle was called and while the others charged out - I walked into my own war ground.
Anann's position as my fated lover was only tested three times in my past. From each of these affairs, I took away something that changed me ever onward. When I sailed the Caribbean as a pirate lord, my patron had not been the Morrigu, but the Smoking Mirror, a dark and sensual god that I pledged my spoils too. Where in many ways I was forced to be with Anann ... I willingly chose to disobey my father to follow Tezcatlipoca. Forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, and the taste lingers ... even after a lifetime.
Perhaps it was out of fondness for our shared history, or the fact that his smirk still sent a dark shiver down my spine but I allowed myself to relax around him. I knew his tricks - that his smile promised pain as much as it could promise pleasure - that this little meeting was as deadly a war zone as whatever had assaulted the meeting ... but I didn't care. After our small talk passed, I sat down on the floor and spoke with Eztli, Tal's half-sister.
She ...more than her sister ever did ... resonated with me. I knew exactly what it was like to be under the controlling gaze of a god of strife and discord. Of a dark deity who demanded more than what you were comfortable giving. There was a old pain in her eyes that I could relate to and as I told her of her sisters adventures ... that same need to have some sort of belonging outside of being a god's sword reflected back at me.
Perhaps Tezcatlipoca muddled my instincts here too, but when Eztli asked for a geas, I bestowed one upon her. I won't lie and say it was all altruistic. I knew Tezcatlipoca lingered in the background and I knew without a doubt that if my geas had not been given willingly ... there would have been blood spilled to assure my cooperation. He knew that I was untouchable now, and I feel that he would have happily threatened Enech to make sure his way was won.
Tal can call it a betrayal whenever she finds out - but her hubris and her ambition is not worth shattering my honor to my family.
In the end, it was my blood spilled. A gift from Tezcatlipoca to me, a simple obsidian ax to be exchanged for favors down the line. When he and his daughter stepped through the mirror as the battle ended, I trembled in the room alone - not from any memory coursing through my body - but from terror.
I have this sinking feeling that I am a simple chess piece in this game only I'm being controlled by the wrong team ... and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
