Yollohtli

Tozi's little sister, who underwent a disturbing change after regaining her memories during the “achto nemilistli” (past life ritual). While investigating strange energies in eastern Khorvaire, Yollohtli gave her flame to Tozi to save her life, and accepted a deal with Belashyrra, Lord of Eyes.

Yollohtli and her father traveled to Xen'drik shortly after this, in the hopes that the shulassakar in Xen'drik could help with her strange behavior. While there, Yollohtli was unable to even enter the ziggurat. When she saw a ship with the symbol of the Unity of Riedra, she went into a rage and tried to kill Lord Katavanash and his crew. She was not seen on the island after that.
According to her, she tried to follow the ship, but wasn't able to catch up before they arrived at the Riedran city on the west coast of Xen'drik. She has been traversing the continent since then, searching for hanbalani alta (the obelisks she says serve as points of influence the Inspired use to control the masses) and Inspired agents, in order to destroy them, and find out why they're on Xen'drik.
She's had some contact with Valexa Von Ruthvek, who she says takes delight in gathering information and taunting her with it. Von Ruthvek also sent Tozi's headdress feathers to her.
After sensing Tozi through her scry, she diverted from her course and began to track her, determined to send Tozi back to Krezent, out of danger. After sharing her memories with Tozi and discussing her plans, she and Tozi will travel together. Tozi is determined to bring her sister back.

Your life - Yollohtli’s lives flash before your eyes.
In one moment, a vast city of terraced temples painted with bright murals, your eldest son, bright feathers cascading down his shoulders as he holds your wrinkled hands in his and you breathe your last breath–
The next moment, you’re in a library, devouring the ancient texts, trying to find the answer to why you can’t pass the test. If the Silver Flame is so strong, why can’t I banish you?
The next moment, the terraced temples are more worn, less colorful, but their power remains. There are fewer now, as others have made their pilgrimages around the world. Thinking back, you feel the loss, but it is a good pain. There are fewer these days in the cities of Khalesh, but as long as the Shulassakar remain, so too will the memory of the couatl and their sacrifice.
The next moment -
The next -
You watch for centuries as a once-beautiful city falls to ruin and wonder how no one noticed it happen.
And on, and on, and–
Your head hurts.
Your knees ache.
You feel…
[Helpless? Oh no no, not helpless, never helpless…]
“--sought peace long ago with the savages of Khalesh, but found a disturbing secret amongst them, preventing their advancement into our Unity.”
[…once you are my vessel.]
I will never be the vessel that brings your evil into the world.
[Evil? What is evil? I merely see the world in a different way.]
A soldier, at a command from the leader of the Harmonious Shield, drags Metztli forward and, Siberys, you can’t let them treat her so roughly.
Your body reacts, but so do your captors, reaching out with a psychic whip. You can feel lashing across your back as surely as you feel it in your mind. You cry out as your body hits the ground, try not to react as they draw you up to your previous kneeling position like a puppet, staring straight at the towering crysteel obelisk glistening in the sun, practically painting the gathered crowd in its glimmer. You try to see the Silver Flame in your mind’s eye, but you are so tired.
“Since that time have we known that the savages living in the cursed ruins of Khalesh worshipped those who once enslaved our people. Under the guidance of the Inspired, they may one day find the right Path. But those who consort with Khyber, who bear their spawn…” the soldier raises up Metztli, the last Flametouched among your clan and unable to hide her vibrant scales or feathers. The crowd gasps in horror, cries out in hatred.
Siberys blessed you and none of you were able to do anything to protect her, to save yourselves. The speaker shushes them. “The Path of Inspiration is lost to them in this life. We must do the right thing and hurry their penitence…in the next life.”
You can’t move. The pressure of their power barely lets you think.
A chop of the axe. A cheer from the crowd.
You should have made everyone run to Adar. Perhaps with the Kalashtar you would have stood a chance.
Chop. Cheer.
You should have called upon the other clans. Perhaps they would have traveled here, their ancestral home. Made things right.
Chop. Cheer.
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
You should have taken more of them down, forced them to take you out in your homeland, gone out in a blaze of glory.
Chop. Cheer.
You were all who were left. You were supposed to lead them. You should have…
[You should have said yes.]
Chop.
Chop.
[Til we meet again.]
Chop.

____

You mind feels a little muzzy, which is not strange on its own. You’ve never been a morning person. Siberys, you barely feel like a person person these days, ever since…
Ever since you’d gotten your memories back. Not all of them, the ceremony never recovers all of them, just the important ones. Sometimes you awake screaming in the night, ready to defend yourself against…nothing. Sometimes you hear the voice…[Let me help you see]. In sword practice, once your favorite time of the day, you see shadows out of the corner of your eyes, faces that shouldn’t be here, enemies where you know - you know - are only friends. But you hurt them all the same. Sometimes you find yourself suddenly full of so much anger, so much hate, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. Sometimes you run out into the center of Krezent, ready to scream warnings - and you’re told that minutes, hours passed, and you had just been standing there, silent, eyes unseeing.
Mother and father can barely look you in the eye these days, your mother too frustrated, your father too worried; your brother…well, he’s always followed in mother’s footsteps, refuses to stay awake when you urge him and Tozi to do so. They don’t understand what’s wrong with you, and you dare not give a voice to it because then the dreams - the nightmares - that would mean they’re real, right?
[I’m still here, I understand you…]
Tozi bumps your shoulder. That’s right, you - Yollohtli - you’re here, in this inn, because she stuck her neck out for you, insisted that you just needed time to sort things out, to parse through your memories, that you’re just restless. You’re too ashamed to reveal to her the mess you’ve become, that you don’t know if you can ever be okay again. How many times have you stood before the flame, praying for the words to convince the elders of the threat to your world? How many times have they turned you away, unable to understand, unwilling to turn from the threats before their eyes to one that is unimaginable. That…was this life…right? Siberys, if there is one thing you will do with your life, it will be to make sure she never has to live through anything like that. Die like that.
[We can, together.]
You inwardly draw on your light and push down the darkness. It goes quiet, for now. Never for long. Even now, you feel it gently brushing on your senses, like a breeze on a cat’s whisker.
And that’s the point, you think. You’ve been feeling…off…for a long time now, but not muzzy like this. If anything, you’ve been too alert, unable to rest, and this feels familiar, like…Sweet dreams, peace, lullabies.
[Lies?]
Shut up.
You squeeze Tozi’s hand to reassure her. She worries for you, you know. Too much. You don’t deserve it. You lead your clan to their deaths. You will not let that happen again.
You catch the tail end of a hushed conversation from the kitchen, “if need be, we’ll deal with it on the morrow, daughter,” before the innkeeper, a dark skinned man with graying hair, and an affinity for the color orange - a spark of color in an otherwise boring town - appeared in the doorway, waving a quick good morning before making his way out to the street.
Despite Chert being a mining town with little reason to visit, it did have this tavern with a few rooms upstairs for traders. The elders had sent you four out - you, Tozi, Tez, and Xolotl - to investigate strange energies in the area. So far, you have reached a dead end. The surrounding land seems normal, as does the quarry. The townsfolk were not unfriendly, but insular and confused about what would bring such a…colorful group there. You wonder that too. You suspect the men were assigned to watch you…but you can’t say you don’t understand the decision, even if it chafes.
But the innkeeper and his family were welcoming, which fit their business as the only ones in town who actually needed to be welcoming to strangers. Case in point, his eldest daughter - Feyra, Flora, something like that - comes through the kitchen door, arms laden with breakfast plates and a smile on her face. Xolotl and Tez immediately stand to help her and when her hands brush against their arms you have to clutch the armrests to keep from scratching her eyes out. You miss most of the conversation. Something about her father being in a rush to carve something he saw in his dreams? She gives the direction of the temple, one of the places your group has not investigated yet. Xolotl, the most experienced of the group and therefore the leader, decides one more day in this place, see if perhaps someone bought a strange item from a recent trade caravan, then move on.
The innkeeper - what was his name? His girls only ever called him Father - is only too happy to share his creation, set up behind the central altar in the temple of the Sovereign host.
You don’t like this thing at all. Everything in you urges you to destroy it, to take Tozi and leave.
[And how did that work out last time?]
In the back of your mind, you note the other shrines to the gods are dusty, but this obelisk - can it be an obelisk, if it does not tower over a crowd - partway carved with a battle between the light and the dark, is so clean. Perhaps it is a property of this strange, opalescent material - crysteel, your mind supplies.
[Where did that come from, I wonder? Perhaps one of my lovelies will find out. All in due time.]
You spend – how long? – too long there, observing the innkeeper, inspecting the obelisk. By the end, with a look, you know the others know there’s something wrong. That’s what the crinkle in Tez’s eyes, Xolotl’s tone of voice mean, right?
You know what’s wrong, but you can’t - you can’t put voice to the words that they’re all gone, that all the shulassakar on Sarlona are dead, that it was your fault, that your greatest fear - that they won’t stop - is coming true. You can’t look at Tozi, she’ll know, she’ll know.
Rest up, return with help, says Xolotl.
[I can help. I only want to help.]
What’s one more night? Asks Tez.
— In your room that night, all four of you there to ensure there’s always someone on watch, you tell Tozi not to sleep.
[The dreams are where they get you. You remembered!]
You can’t even follow your own orders.
[Are you sure we can’t see eye to eye, this time around?] That voice that has been around for – too many lifetimes now - attached like a parasite in the seconds between Flame and body - feels so close, like you can open your eyes –
Just in time to avoid a killing blow from a sword.
“Fern, she was asleep, how could you miss?”
“You’re one to talk Fayetta, yours is still coughing blood.” The dark-haired woman retorts, pointing mockingly at–
Tozi. You must have said that out loud, because Fern’s attention is back on you. “Nothing personal. Servants of the Dark One must be cleansed so we can guide the worthy to the Light.”
You see the shadows of two others. You don’t hear Xolotl or Tez. And Tozi -
Your mind sharpens in your rage. With barely a thought you reach for your scimitar, and don’t let yourself be surprised when it blazes with silver flame. Where did that come from? You feel some small sliver of hope, that the Flame is responding to your need. You strike out, aiming to hurt, but mostly aiming to get them away, and when you have the chance, you switch tactics, grabbing Tozi and jumping out the window, breaking it open with your back, breaking Tozi’s fall with your body. You hear footsteps, gasps, but it doesn’t matter. As long as Tozi’s alive, as long as you can heal her, you can defeat them, you can redeem yourself–
You hear Tozi’s breath rattle, watch the flame leave her –
“Fear not, my fellows, the servants of the Dark One will soon be defeated by the Light.”
Nonononononono. You’ve lost everything, again and again and again, and now in this life, even when you felt like an empty husk of loss, even when you struck out at your memories, your friends, Tozi was there with her love and her belief in you.
[I can bring her back. Your Tozi. I can make you both strong enough–]
NO. You will not let her die, and you will not let the darkness that found you so long ago invade her.
You see the innkeeper, his wife, his daughters approach. See the townsfolk who allowed themselves to be used by the Inspired. You reach deep into yourself, reach for the light that has always blazed, and you push it into Tozi.
It’s not a simple thing, transferring one’s flame. You’ve heard about it in stories. It requires such a great force of will, such a need, such a love, it’s almost never successful. Too many tragedies tell the tale of one who is able to extract their flame but lacks the strength to transfer it. And yet…The blazing radiance expands in a circle around you, pushing back your enemies.
You hear your sister gasp, a clean breath this time, not filled with blood. You’re shocked you’re still alive to hear it. You could almost cry.
“Demon!”
But you don’t have time. Neither of you have much time left.
[You are not alone. I can help you get your revenge. I can help you protect her.]
You think, for just a moment, to reject the offer. Just another rejection among so many lifetimes of offers. You’ve gotten so good at pushing it back. But you feel so cold, so empty, without the flame.
An empty vessel…
[Not empty for long.]
You look at the crowd, the death that awaits. You look at your sister, alive, but unconscious, unable to defend herself, unable to run. You reach your hand out to the darkness that found you so long ago, the barrier of fire no longer between you.
"Yes."
— Days - weeks? - later, a group of shulassakar bring back news to Krezent. One of the halfling hunting groups stumbled upon the site of a massacre, a small mining town up near the Fist of Onatar. The hunters could barely describe the horror they saw; no sign of whatever monster did it, best be careful.
Not long after that, your mother locks you in the temple.
[We’ll be free soon, my dear, I’ve seen it.]