4
Xolotl
Nope, bonding her was definitely a mistake.
So far, the general I chose has tried to shove me over a cliff, bashed me on the head with a big rock, tripped me, and tried to strangle me—twice—and for fun, she’s pelted me with rocks half a dozen times. Each time, she watches me carefully, like she’s cataloguing the damage it does.
Which is none.
I can’t be harmed by her or any other human.
This human’s a lunatic, and even worse? Now that she’s concluded that she can’t kill me, she’s begun arguing with me about my very purpose in life.
“I’m heading into the town.” I turn again to head south, and she blocks me, as if she could stop me with her teensy, tiny, frail mortal body. “Get out of the way, or I’ll run you over.”
“You didn’t do it as a horse.” She crosses her arms.
“Do what?”
“Run me over.” She tosses her head. “You won’t do it now, either.”
I feint left and then duck right and jog around her. “I’m about to shift back into my horse form and fix my mistake.”
“You’re talking better than you were, more comfortably.” She jogs alongside me, and I realize she’s still doing it, trying to herd me back north. “You sound less like a badly written historical cartoon.”
I don’t explain that I’ve been able to model my language after her own speech patterns. I have to do this every time I awaken. Although I understand every human language, it takes a bit of time to sink into the proper dialects and usages. “What exactly is a historical cartoon?” Cartoons are drawings, but a historical one?
I frown as I try to make sense of her, but I should really just ignore her instead. I do plow ahead, shoving her small body with my own much larger one when she physically tries to nudge me north again. This time, I’ll stay on track even if it kills her. I sense the location of the large mass of humans, and it’s time for the balance to be restored.
“You don’t know anything about the world, you’ve been asleep so long. Do you even know what year it is?”
“Do you know who I am?”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course. You’re the death god, Xolotl. Right?”
I can’t help my pleasure that humans still remember me, even after a long interval. “I don’t care how you count your years. Your time means nothing to me.” But I do actually want to know how long it has been. I just can’t give her the satisfaction of knowing I care.
“Well, time means something to us,” she says. “In fact, all that we poor little humans really have here on earth is time.”
“Yes, but you don’t appreciate any of it.” I shake my head. “That’s the point of my existence, you know.”
“Huh?” She darts around and blocks me again, and I slam into her, nearly knocking her flat. She presses her tiny hands against my chest, and I feel something very strange.
I like it. “Do not do that.” I bat her hands away.
“You need to explain that thing you just said,” she says. “And after that, you can explain why I feel some kind of tether connecting me to you. What did you do to me?” She’s glaring at me pointedly.
“I could fry you and be done with all this,” I say. “And I might do it any moment.” I glare right back.
“But you haven’t yet,” she says. “I saw you setting people on fire and blackening them back there. So why not me?”
I square my shoulders, my eyes flashing. “You’re correct that the Aztecs called me Xolotl, the lightning God, the Lord of Mictlan, or sometimes they called me Mictlantecuhtli when I slept. I bring the souls of humans to their final rest.” I lift my chin.
“So, you really are death.”
I can’t help my frown. “I’m not just death. I’ve been called Cizin, Ta’xet, or Vichama, and any number of other names, but my real purpose is to restore balance when the world has become overgrown and sickly.” I clear my throat. “As it is now.”
“What name do you like?” She lifts her eyebrows.
