Bindings of the Heart
Chloe Sherrill-Howell / V Mag at UVA
You sit in a well of your own power. Serpents of blood slither down the smaller cuts on your arms and legs. Leaves dress the more grievous injuries, a thin layer of cactus sap preventing a quick death. Your left arm is still broken, fragments of bone lodged in your biceps; it doesn’t move. Your legs are better, due to skillful strikes that inflicted only the necessary injuries. You touch the swollen joints, sprained, yet no significant breakage, nothing that would prevent the journey. The aching pain asphyxiates you, groans melt into the cage walls, and you rest once more, shedding your sepia skin for adornments of crimson. The hopes and memories you’ve lived for die flat, and in your state you succumb to another night of agony. You deserve better, and you shall soon have it, but your conviction is weak. So tonight you will suffer.
Torment writhes within as you fade into the realm of dreams. You are brought back to moments of youth and to the innumerable scars and sacrifices you devoted to my realm. You remember the jealousy that grew within you as your elder brothers attended calmecac to be educated as noble priests and leaders of war and government. Born from your father’s second wife, you were instead chosen to attend telpochcalli, alongside many commoners, to learn the way of the warrior. Long nights of penance instilled an unshakeable faith in your desire to walk the path of your father, and to achieve glory through victory on the battlefield. Within your name this destiny echoes, Huitzilli, hummingbird, consecrated in honor of my own physicality, my very being.
It is not with disdain I look at you. You have left your very soul forfeit to feelings of guilt. It is in our power that you have been forged, and in the crucible of warfare you’ve found my eternal truth, order. You witness a hierarchy far above yourself and still you pledge to me, as a servant of the sun. I have devoured the hearts of four hundred stars, their faded luster ushering in my sister’s beauty, and preventing them from challenging the inferno of my domain. As I have formed your world you have sustained mine. You’ve felt the claws of darkness in the wounds bored into you, and you realized my occasion. Yet still you fail to see your place in it.
It is understandable, but there is still much to be done. My child, you feel the world to be unfair, a misplaced faith that the very light I shine on your wounds will heal them closed. It will be some time before you realize my radiance. You rush too quickly through the cracks of light that I chip in your cage, thinking selfishly that I will aid your escape. I am not here to break you out. I am here to stay with you, as I always have.
You awake once more. A maize tortilla with a spread of beans lies before you. For the first time since your arrival you look outside the cage, witnessing the splendor of sunlight splash across the city of Tlaxcala. Amongst the folds of endless neighborhoods, a pyramid temple towers above. In three days time Mixcoatl will receive you as a warrior, and you will leave this mortal world to join me as I march across the east each morning. You will join me still in war, as celestial conflict attempts to drown the world once more in infinite night. You will join me as I have joined you, and your essence will seep into the sun just as my essence lingers in your ancestral veins. You are my child, and your place has always been with me. You are Huitzilli, and your wings will beat once more.
In the processions that follow, your captor escorts you, alongside your fellow warriors captured in battle, around the city's masses and the fifty ruling houses. The heraldry, bravery, and faith that you possess is esteemed by those around you. In their eyes, you have proven yourself, despite your defeat, to satiate the gods above and preserve the very order you serve. It is almost your 17th year, and you are forced to prematurely make peace with childhood dreams of bringing glory to your people and kin. I can only imagine your frustration, to be captured in your very first battle.
Yet today, you begin to see, in the eyes of your captured brothers, what you’ve been chasing your whole life. You see it in their lesioned skin, battered, scarred, and swollen. You see it past the blood stains underneath the garments you’ve all been given. You see it still, as you stand behind them, and watch their gaze linger on the altar suspended under the heavens that you will soon ascend. You have seen eyes like these in your father, as he marched the packed streets of Tenochtitlan with a captured Tlaxcalan captain. You have seen eyes like these in your mother, as she wrapped the gash on your head, defying predictions of your death. For all the eyes you have seen, you have finally found what has raptured their gaze. Purpose. You look at the fading sun, and breathe in the sky that you were meant to soar.
You fall asleep for the last time. The tempest that stirs within you reveals its eye as you fade once more into dreams. You are brought back to your final battle. Back to the excitement that brimmed within you as you marched for days alongside your mentor. Back to the grip of fear that strangled you as you watched your mentor vanish into the foliage, leaving you alone. And back to the moment when an enemy warrior emerged from the brush, and the moment where you stood against him.
This was your trial, and with defeat, you assumed that you had failed. Let me tell you what I witnessed instead, my child.
You stood against an opponent who gave you the chance to retreat, yet despite his muscular figure, his plumage of eagle feathers, and his markings of an elite warrior, you stood. You drew your weapon, each obsidian blade reflecting the sweat of anticipation, and you charged. You leapt around him with the agility of a jaguar, each swing of his club meeting the emptiness from which you had sprung. You managed to strike true, claiming his right eye, lacerating his legs, and nearly submitting him to your skill. His courage wavered, yet his experience prevailed, and he struck your arms, legs, and finally your head, knocking you unconscious. You stood knowing this likely fate, and yet you still faced it with undeniable courage. You wonder where your purpose lies, but if only you were able to see what was within your eyes in this moment, you’d witness purpose there too.
You were never without purpose my child, and as you wake tomorrow, you will find it once more. Let it finally unfasten your heart from guilt and uncertainty as you rise beyond the weight that drowns you.
The day has come. The city roars awake with the clamor of festival and celebration. Your captor bathes you, the marinating blood of defeat wiped clean. You have been chosen first, and as you pass by each of the other captured soldiers, they acknowledge you. Some solemn, some compassionate, and for the few that keep your gaze, they nod with respect. It is relieving at least, knowing that you will not be alone, knowing that your fate is certain, and knowing where you will go. You pay little attention to the crowds as you are led forward, your chin held high, and a hardened focus on the altar. A hundred steps of stone shoot towards the sky, and the temple invites you further up.
You begin to climb. Each step you take further plunges the world around you into dusk. The sun will soon depart, and when it does, you will follow it. You know what will happen; you have seen it many times before at my temple in Tenochtitlan. The priests make their speeches. The crowd give their praise. The captor is celebrated. And you lay upon the altar underneath the priest's obsidian blade. You look towards the sky once more, wondering how you will find me as fate closes around you. The priest raises his blade, plunges it deep, and your blood begins to flow.
It flows over your cracked ribs.
It flows from the hands of the priest, dripping onto your face.
It flows below the brown-stained altar.
It flows down each and every stone cut step of the temple.
It flows into a pool at the bottom and stays for a moment, as the crowd witnesses the wellspring of glory that you grant them.
It flows further into the roots reaching deep into the ground, where I have carved a path to the center of the earth.
It flows down the tail of Cipactli, and through the nine realms of the underworld found within.
It flows down the length of the great monster, where it finally reaches the primeval waters that surround the universe and you are released from the torment of unlife.
In the hands of the priest, held high above the altar for the heavens to witness, is your heart. I now see it. As your eyes flutter around the blackness that surrounds your view you realize. You were never meant to find me. It is in your last moment that you finally look upon me and let me in. And understand, it is I who has been looking for you.
Now my child, come.
The dark maroon of your power now shines gold, gilded by the fires of my embrace. Your soul spears towards the heavens, and you leave the city of Tlaxcala at last. There is no longer despair, no anger toward the people that have plucked out your feathers. You were born with my fire, and you will forever feel its warmth. My dear Huitzilli, spread your wings amongst the stars alongside me, and let your glory pierce the night.
Four years later
My child, you have served me well as a protector of transcendent order. And you deserve more than eternal obedience. Let me grant you immortal life as an aspect of my form, where you will forever bless this world with your courage. You are reborn.
You awake to a new life.
You stretch your wings, and feel the radiance you have ensured.
And finally, you fly as you were meant to.
Huitzilli, my hummingbird.