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The sky opened its eye with red visage that cover the land with its deadly hue. Air was thick with dust and sandstorms and if one was to breath it in they would discover that their lungs was filled with gravels. Walk with ones feet and they would find their legs torn with the sharpest of dirt. Take their one's eyes and aim them to the orb that caused it all and all they'd got was the same bleeding flowing from their organs of vision.
This infernal vista should be someone's imagination about the deepest hell. Not darkness that hung heavily in one's throat but the sun smiling above the ether at the drying carnage that it itself had brought. Now that imagination wasn't quite imagination. Now it was the truth. Seeping into the cracks of reality and with its own twists.
Yet there was someone who did walk this path. Who did saw the scenery with wide eyes open and unafraid. Who did breath in the blistering air and let the gravels entered into the working lungs.
Or not. The nasal flared like they were breathing in flowery fields with all its fresh air and angelic scents.
Maybe the mind too convinced the body that the path the feet forwarded with their each steps were merely floral garden. See the sentiment carved on the itinerant's serene smile.
To where the itinerant's feet carried their master was would be unknown for the naked eyes. But as the wind picked up and the monstrous gravels now howled with the gale making the change of course inevitable still the pace and gait remained unchanged. Still with poise and grace one would expect from a stroll in blooming grasses by the flowing river.
In the vicinity there was a cave rocky and mighty. But inside hid someone haughty yet very afraid. Sweat trickled not entirely because of heat. Shiver ran the entire body not entirely because the lack of light. Heart thumping not entirely because of the breaths of the snoring soldiers in companionship were suspected of betrayal.
It was fear of primal origin. The instinct bestowed by the Primordial being that granted the humans race their lives and death by the hands of Their godly daughters. It was was bloodcurdling and stretched deep into a living's soul even if they had not know yet about the cause of their great terror. Unbearable was the slow flow of sand that counted every second that passed between the nothingness of action until the fulfillment of this self-making fearful prophecy.
This feeling was what haunted the recreant. Along with millions of aforementioned discomfort and dread. It was what made his feet rose and finally leave the darkness of the cave. The sleeping soldiers went on in their dreams. For before they closed their eyes they predicted that hail of flame would continue for a long time and thus there was nothing they could do but rest.
In the distance came the echo of fiery rumbling. It was a complicit partner of the virulent sun. They were the orchestrators of the hellion weather that embossomed this place. The volcano spewed its molten lava and ashen soot in a vertical mocking grin. Just like a slashed mouth.
It made him shiver even further. Not entirely because of his fearful state. Memories of a visage so similar shook him to the core. He forced himself to step into the hot-burning group in a riddance of it.
Yet it was not forgettance that greeted him with bliss. It was the sounds of alien footsteps approaching him. It was not in hurry just as was the habit of a random person trapped inside the hellish storm. The approached one lifted his head toward the intruder with all his body already freezing.
The only thing moving was the recreant's spasming throat that wished to voice a loudest scream. The attempt was halted when the intruder's hands were raised to show that no armaments were being carried.
It was the itinerant from before. A man. Adding to the raised and empty hands were also the walker's gentle yet sonorous shout that announced that he had come in peace. Said that he was looking for a shelter.
The recreant didn't believe his words immediately. People would do the same in his position where one was faced with a seemingly undisturbed man in the middle of a volcanic growl. He gulped his saliva and with a tremble shouted back that the intruder must show himself more clearly and declare his identity.
The walker shook his head and started his explanation. He came from a destroyed village near here. Volcano's vomit was a common occurrence back in his more peaceful past so he wasn't too bothered by the storm that was raging right now. He even added that humans were far more scarier than nature's wrath because humans could hid their vileness in a smile and slowly poison others with their charm.
The interlocutor thought that the last part was an unnecessary addition. He deemed that it was all a further sign that he was facing a spy or a man in retardation. He retreated some steps back into the cave hole until he remembered that the soldiers he suspected were dying to sell his soul could wake up in any moment. If they laid their eyes upon his fragile state there would be only wonderment of ruin.
So he called upon the man to come in. Said man welcomed the invitation with glee and crept into the cave's opening until he was stopped there. That was the limit of the recreant's trust. Yet the man paid no offense to this. He rested his back against the rocky wall with one side of him withstanding the volcanic storm.
The unwitting host stared at this man still in caution and growing curiosity. So he asked him another question about his origin. Was it true that his village was destroyed?
The guest nodded. Claimed that its destruction was due to the flame of war that dragged his innocent village in its wake. Such background bored the man who had waged and fought wars. He replied to his guest that such thing was nothing special.
The guest laughed bitter-sweetly and remarked that the man was right. Truly it was. Of buildings and homes burned with families murdered and ripped and the boys forcefully recruited to partake in the next bloodbath. Of fields rooted and scorched with salts so it'd bear no more and the conquered forever starved. Of people chained and whipped away with the females scarring or even taking their own lives away to avoid the worst fate that awaited their kind.
Such was a common thing in war.
The man squirmed. It was not a common occurrence for him to contemplate the nature of war. So he waved his guest's droning as a bout of eccentricity away.
The annoyance that bloomed from that conversation had awashed the man's earlier feeling of fear, however. The guest's constant referencing to the glory and folly of war didn't stop him to point 'safety' as the nearest feeling he had come to bear for him. Safety as one might feel to an old stupid and endearing dog. Why did he feel that for the exasperating smiling guest that he had just met in comparison to the soldiers who had accompanied him during all his exile? One must wonder.
The conversation strayed further into each other's past. The guest's guile had a certain way that made the man's craven heart to open more and more to this farcical stranger. What about your own home? The guest asked blithely. What about the land where you've grown up and made a man into?
The man raised a hand to his chin and together they trod upon his childhood memories. His tribe was a bloodline of mercenaries. From the moments he could walk his hand had held weapons of arms. No wonder he didn't question war. He was born by it. Do you question your own mother?
Thus how his earlier cravenness transformed slowly into a proud boasting. Prideful he was of his culture of warriors and violence. Blood-soaked campaigns waged for the highest bidders and loots ransacked that could make a poverty-stricken man to the wealthiest in all the land. Pleasure and barbarity intertwined.
His story reached its climax when he joyously recounted the day a larger tribe had knelt before their mercy. All that richness and prestige just for them to tremble at the sight of their swords. Give them their leader's comely daughter as a bride for the most powerful of his tribe. She came with her hair sewed with flowers so colorful and a visage that displayed virginal piety. She was like a celestial maiden whom fell and stranded into their eager hands.
So his tribe entertained an idea they had nurtured for a long time. All of them saw the wings of dragons' might that imposed a shadow tall and dark throughout the land. In his homeland, those beastly creatures had woven roads of golden threads that connected the highest of heavens to the deepest of netherworld. How did they create it? The observants of his tribe watched the cunning claws of creation so closely. Their answer was—
The man shut his mouth and reconsidered his words. Why did he feel the need to spill everything in his past to this cheery guest? That was stupid. Perhaps isolating himself in this cave really caused regressed some part of his intellectual cerebration. He shook his head and crossed his arms as he said that those things bore no importance anymore. All in the past.
In his guest's face flickered a tiniest bit of dissatisfaction that went sublimed with his accepting nod. Said that he understand that it was a matter full of sensitivity to him. The man chuckled that perhaps he ought to thank him for his sensibility. Though deep down he was grateful that he could relive some of his most glorious moments through this confab. He said that all was in the past but the truth is he wore them on like a skin in the storm of present. Grasping at splendor and grandeur long gone.
Yet the lull of conversation went on. More and more that this man granted an easy access to his mind and soul to this guest of his. His guest laughed and smiled and sympathized with all the twists and turns of his life. His victories he gave his applause to. His sorrow he shed some tears to. His wreckage he displayed the gritting teeth of anger to. The man felt seen like he was never before. Empathy-drunk.
In the end they returned to the man's peak point. Now come the ease of laughter and even louder boasting. Where did we left off in regard of that beautiful promised bride? She had come with her divine acquiescence for the sake of her kin and tribe. And her fortunate groom? None other than him.
But that was not all. His tribe had concocted a plan based on their observations in regard of the dragons' power. A giggle escaped the man's lips reminiscing it. Now he waved the topic away with glee and teasing tone. None of that mattered now. Truly.
His bait worked. His guest's earlier dissatisfaction now grew into a cry of a child whose toy had been taken away. Pleading with the funny eyes of his to continue the story. His curiosity was scratching and bursting and it wouldn't be sated until he know how that piece of his past had went.
The man put a finger on his mouth. Lower your voice the gesture said. Those sleeping soldiers could wake up. Slapping his thighs his guest did like a child impatient. That'd not do. He'd be too excited. His past was too incredibly fascinating to not to be noiseless over.
It was the maximum encomium that tipped him toward his guest and whispered with one side of his mouth covered if his guest really and truly curious about it.
They were like girls exchanging secrets. The guest leaned forward and copied his host's move and avidly said yes. And even added a fuel to the flame; don't say it here among the guarded cave and resting strongmen. Said that wasn't that shade over there where the storm didn't touch and the shadow gentle looked like a secret nook.
The man smiled all too widely. So to there they went while talking incessantly. The guest even remarked that weren't they such a pair of fast friends? He couldn't believe that there was such an awesome man living and helping him. It only stroke the man's ego even more.
So their arrival of their destined sanctuary was marked by the man's gloating that he could demonstrate how exactly they managed that situation with the gestures of his hands. The guest replied that he better be. In fact, why didn't the guest himself act as the man while the man himself guided him as the actor of his enemies? That way the guest could immerse himself in the mans awesomeness even more. Was there any other reply from the man than haughty agreement?
So the man sat on the ground already acting like the bride and his guest the groom. Now he ordered him to put a makeshift crown on his head like the flowery one he made for the by-then bride. The guest smiled and inquired that would a crown of thorns do. Worry not for the spikes for he would remove them all. Again the man haughtily agreed.
So rest that thorny crown that the guest crafted from a nearby dead bush. It seemed that the guest had missed some of the thorns for the man grimaced ever so slightly but the man didn't comment out of pride. The bridal procession proceeded with the man saying that he clasped hands with the gentle bride and intoned his vow. Even she blushed. Thus how the guest now clasped the man's hands too with gentleness so tender as he intertwined each other's fingers. His sunshine eyes shone sweetness so unadulterated as if the man was truly the object of his happiness. The curve of his smile lost its jesting quality and transformed into an intimate twinkle that promised endless affections.
Such was his actions that made the man's heart beat wildly and blood rushed to his cheeks.
Was the gestures accurate asked the guest with feather-like softness in his tone. The man's blushing stutters were enough of a reply.
The guest chuckled still with that tender affection and let his fingers unfurled from their clasps and to the shoulders of the man. Look at me in the eyes such act signaled. Look the man did and he was greeted once more with the dawn light softness of his guest's eyes. With the same calm as the dawn's breeze did the man implored what was to be done next from here. The man's entranced answer was to get closer to each other until their foreheads meet and their eyes gazed each other's with finality.
Really? Questioned the guest. But not in the fraction of a second he did what he bid. Just like that?
The man was too spellbound to even nod.
The guest took it upon himself to confirm it and continue their 'marriage' anyway. So they hands went this way? To your cheeks? To the tender flesh of your face and caress it?
So—
Was this how you tear your bride's face apart?
The guest's fingers digged deep into his skin and chunked out some parts of his meat.
Red holes forming on his face. Drizzling the crimson liquid.
The man was utterly shocked and frozen.
Or— asked the guest again with his bloodied fingers on the tip of the man's chin— was this the way? He finalized that question with a kiss. A kiss where he bit into his lips and gums and teeth and ripped his jaw apart. The whites and pinks matters splatted on the dusty ground.
So? Which one was correct?
The man's gaping maw uttered some incomprehensible noises. Yet if one were to work their ears one could heard the word knife.
The guest said that that they didn't have a knife so they'd just do improvisation. He'd followed both methods just to be safe even. So he gripped the back of his neck and teasingly said get ready before boring his fingers deep into his flesh until they made openings to the hollows of his throat.
How funny! The guest said. Now we could do some mock vows. Did you also say it to your bride? What did you say? I've never gone to weddings nor I know the exact procession… why, perhaps this was my first. I heard that we must 'tie knots'. Do you know what knots?
The man's shook looked more like a wobble. A head that threateningly almost fall off from its shoulders. The guest sighed in response. Well I guess you never did finish your marriage. Oh well. But at least lets make some of our own vows?
The man gurgled something about love and eternity. The guest rewrote them with the strings of his own words. And then he made the man copy it by playing the back of his neck. His fingers pulled up and pushed down like he was playing a flute of flesh and bones. And it did. The man's melody was a tune of choked burble and whistles of air entering in and out of his organs. The guest cheered because the wet splashing sounds and fife-like hisses composed a macabre symphony singing about eternal love.
Now the vow is done— said the guest as he let go of his fingers and let the man's head lolled— what about the knots I've heard? Your loincloth or mine is too short I see. Well makeshift is what we always do!
He tapped the man's chest and dragged his finger down while humming his own make-do songs. Oh how I love this man with my whole heart. How I long to give my all for him. How I wish to gift him the beat of my life… Until he stopped on his belly button. My oh my he said with a twinkle. Mothers nurtured their babies inside their stomachs through this belly buttons isn't it? And when we were born they all severed it? What if we tie the knots through this rope of life? It's like retying our bonds to our mothers but with each other… don't you think so?
Why did the guest even asked the man if he knew that the answer was always be agreement?
Nonetheless he still stroke his belly button as if he got his spoken consent. And with a giggle he jabbed in until it bursted like a geyser of vivid red color. See it how it erupts, the cord of life! He laughed as he saw how much the liquid— blood, acid, bile-like substance, bits of food spoiled and rotten— spilled. You have so much things stored in your stomach isn't it?
But then the guest commented that greedy spill wasn't enough yet. They needed far more. Say you wouldn't mind if I opened it a little more aren't you? And as usual the guest tore it with no hesitation. The wall of the man's stomach split like the softest of butter and melted under his touch.
And with it came out too the organs that rested inside his belly. Came the intestines shaped into gigantic coils that dropped carelessly from the walls of his stomach to the rough and soaked sand— the impact tore some parts of it and from them leaked the yellowish nectar stink of rot—. Another was the still spasming membrane of acidic pouch— this one still hung from its rope of esophagus—. The rest of his organs still clung with deathly fear or fell to into the outside earth.
The guest was awed by the sight. He touched the intestines cautiously until he grabbed it with too much force. These are so full! Like obese snakes! We have to make them thinner somehow to knot them up! So then he squeezed those coily flesh. And up his hand went. Up and up until he hit the boiling pouch of acid and squeezed it too. Up and up his hand until all the content of his stomach travelled and scorched the trail of his digestive organs and onto the opening of his holed neck and bleeding jaw. The man vomited and coughed his torn throat and boneless mouth and released tons of liquid foul.
The guest couldn't stop laughing at that moment. He never stopped. Not until his intestines had all been thin membranes and its content splashing the ground with bile, saliva, and blood. And in the aftermath the neat tie bow of pink and red was worked with the guest's gleeful hands. He put it on the ground atop the liquid content.
The man's body tremble unceasingly at this point. The guest gripped his shoulders once more and resumed his endless laughter. Said that he needed to relax. Was he that excited to play the bride?
Well then continued the guest. This is my approximation on how your wedding was supposed to go. What happened after this?
The man's hand shooked violently but with much force he managed to point at his chest. His heart.
The guest smiled. You sure do love me huh? Can't blame you. I'm just that lovable.
So the guest's hand returned to open and flapped stomach. The cut across it came deeper and longer as he traversed upward. Up to the valley of bones that protected the thrumming beats of life.
He snapped one bone away. This won't do said he. We need more space to fill my own love. And another bone was snapped. And another. And another. Until the ground too was littered with cracked white sharpness and made the liquid pool looked like a wretched swamp of doom. The guest even jested about this as he reached the thick part of the sternum. Don't you look at it, now our love even has a scenery.
And then the final snap. The sternum was broken. Gave way for the eyes the visage of red beating heart.
Oh whistled the guest. That looks alive! Don't you think so? Oh wait you couldn't even feel your own heart. Shame. You don't know how beautiful that vivid color can be… but I guess your bride's far more beautiful isn't it?
So tell me. Did you cut her heart out too and eat it?
You blinked. That must mean a yes.
Let me then…
The guest jabbed his hand to that red matter. All sharp and cutting. And his face was a serene mirth.
The man… what left could be said of the man?
He wailed with that jawless voice of his. But it was the voice of bliss. He tremored riotously. But it was the tremor of excitement. His vomit and tears had reached its extreme peak— with all of them making a flood of their shaded sanctuary area—. But… wasn't that happines?
And thus the last burst of life raining upon the dry torrent was the man's finale of a happy ending.
But not without a closing, I love you.
The guest had said that this was indeed the first wedding he attended and perhaps he was committing it to his memories for his next attendance. Branding the lifeless carcass with its ribcage jutting and its intestines shaped into a neat little bow and the pool of rot that framed it all into remembrance.
And the still crimson beating heart upon his palms.
The guest— was he now still a guest when the host's soul was not there to entertain him?— now gazed contemplatively to his desired loot. He raised it to the sky and the rest of its blood poured downward.
His face curdled ever so slightly into disgust. To where the course of fate would take this organ from such a pathetic, obnoxious, and cowardly person should take?
He lifted his gaze up to the sky too and then—
An emaciated eagle flew and snatched the organ. Its bony wings and weak body carried the rhythmical spasming heart that might have more weight that itself with great difficulty.
He kept gazing at that poor eagle until it vanished from his view. Only then that the glaring virulent sun completely betook the gaze of his eyes.
Thus was how the Tzizimimeh took a gentle visage and greeted the ill-fortunate bride into his doom. Striped and allayed his fears away and exchanged it with a heart of feelings so immense he welcomed his agonizing death with fervent love.
Now this deceased bride's 'groom' sighed. His self-inflicted mission was complete. He'd return to his army and wait 'till the news of his work broke into the camps.
…And perhaps this too could help her soul to rest in peace.
…There's a record in regard to the the First Pyro Archon's alliance with the Kacho'pinik tribe. The once rich and powerful tribe recovered some of their wealth, but they were too traumatized to trust any forces with weapons and grand dreams such as the Grand Alliance. This negative reaction was caused by the Kacho'pinik's near vanquishment by a brutal tribe of mercenaries that bore the name of Colhua.
A source recounted that the once-wealthier Kacho'pinik was a prideful bunch, and they were stirred by lust to regain even more gold and riches. But since their tribe was consisted of merchants and tradesmen alone, they sought their power on the aforementioned mercenary tribe. Problems rose when the Colhua deemed that they weren't paid in accordance to their labor, and demanded that they could took some of their blood-soaked loots. The Kacho'pinik vehemently rejected this proposition.
Soon calamity befall upon them. Their allies withdrew their support and cacahuatls. Their enemies bared their fangs and struck them. The Colhua? The brain of it all, with them lending their hands of their destruction.
In a desperate bid of salvation, the Kacho'pinik's tlatoani offered his daughter's hand in marriage to the Colhua as an act of peacemaking. The mercenaries seemed to agree, and a wedding was proceeded.
Except, it was not a wedding like any other.
History named the bride as Toci. Young and beautiful, she marched through the field and sat on the matress, accepting her fate in the lock of marriage. Only, she received not a single knot or vow, but death. Her promised groom carried her to an altar and tied her there, where she was delivered a knife straight to her chest, and from there her heart was removed and gifted to an unknown god of— suspected, for the dragons too has a tradition similar to this— draconic origin. With the sacrificial heart the Colhua enchanted to their god for more power, strength, and wealth. And they made their petition final by razing Toci's kin and tribe.
Many years had passed after that bloody event, and this mercenary tribe eventually met their downfall and was reduced into just several members… including— as it was rumored— the murderous groom.
Thus how the story went. In any case, the Kacho'pinik was reluctant to join the Alliance in the account of these surviving tribesmen. If they were to disappear suddenly from the face of the earth, one of them said, then they'd pick it as a sign that the Gods supported the Grand Alliance's cause.
At that point in time, the Grand Alliance's army was in a critical condition. The cohort sent to the Kacho'pinik's area was exhausted and lost contact with the larger army's body. They needed any support they could find, and cerebrated hard on how to find those survivors and exacted vengeance for the sake of their potential patron, fast. When all hope seemed lost, the leader of the cohort and the army as a whole, the by-then-not-yet First Pyro Archon laid back on his seat and declared that all of them were too tired to even lift a weapon, so the best next move was to rest just for a day. The cohort protested, but the First Pyro Archon assured them that everything will be alright, and they did find an agreement with his order to rest in the end.
And indeed, everything went so well for this lost cohort— for the next morning, just after they woke up as the first ray of light started rising, they found a corpse of a starved eagle, its claws clutching a splattered heart.
The next good news that befell them was the quick surrender of the groom's soldiers. They went to the Kacho'pinik and the Grand Alliance willingly, and fearfully explained that they was stalked by an even more terrifying and powerful foe, who managed to carry and murder their leader in a horrific way beyond their knowledge while they were trapped in a volcanic storm. He was slashed, they said. His stomach was open and disemboweled, with his intestines tied into a marriage knot. Plus, his neck was full of holes, and his mouth lost its lower jaw.
No wonder they were so afraid. The Kacho'pinik took this as a sign that the Gods was on the Grand Alliance's side. The cohort bolstered it even further that it was the First Pyro Archon himself that had granted such brutal death befitting of a vile man through means extraordinaire. The man humbly rejected such notion, of course. He cited that perhaps, the spirit of Toci had seeked justice for herself and finally laid into a peaceful and eternal rest.