Your New God... Ahuizotl?

Chapters

The Calling of a God
The Village Life
The Approaching Wolves

The Calling of a God

Ahuizotl didn't know how long he'd been running for. He just knew that it had been a very long time, and it was the hardest thing that he'd ever had to do.

The image was still burned firmly into his mind's eye, an image that he just somehow knew would never be able to be pried out. Daring Do, flying away triumphantly. The look of determined elation on her face, that she'd been able to foil the plans of her most dire enemy. He could almost imagine the glint of those rings still glimmering in her eyes, reliving that fateful moment when she and her compatriot tore the proverbial walls out from everything that he had worked for.

What was her name again? he wondered. It took him a moment to remember. She hadn't really said it at all during their confrontation, maybe just as an afterthought. Rainbow something or another. Rainbow Dash, maybe? That sounded about right.

It wasn't like he'd expected to ever have to remember that name. After all, if the mighty Daring Do hadn't been able to completely stop him, to make it so that his reign of terror on Equestria would come to a decisive end, then what would have made him think that this random pony would have anything at all to contribute?

As it had turned out, Rainbow had done more than her part in foiling his plans. In fact, Daring Do wouldn't have even been able to lift those rings off the pole they had been placed so carefully around, if it weren't for Rainbow's assistance. Ahuizotl himself, a being of immense strength and will, had struggled to get them exactly in the place they needed to be in, so he hadn't counted at all on two mere ponies being able to get them out of place- even if one of them was his most nefarious nemesis.

Of course, his lack of foresight into the matter had been his downfall. Being able to swallow his pride never had been Ahuizotl's strong suit, and this instance hadn't been the exception to the rule. His unwillingness to consider that he may have overlooked something had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

That realization hurt like a bugbear's bite. He was having to do a lot of soul-searching, if a monstrosity like him could even be thought to have a soul. He had to, though, right? After all, the soul is the font of life for all living things, or so he'd heard. And since he was most definitely alive, wouldn't the logical extension of that premise be that he indeed had a soul?

Maybe it just died a long time ago, and that's why he couldn't feel it within him. That thought was one that had been rolling around in his head for the past week or so. It had shaken him tremendously when it had initially occurred to him, right down to the very core of his being.

And the biggest question of all, the one that had started him down this path of self search to begin with: What would he do now? A majority of his life had been predicated on the belief that his way was right, and the actions he was taking, the ponies whom he had practically had to enslave in order for them to (albeit reluctantly) do his bidding- all of that was justified.

Why? Because he had a work to do in Equestria. Everything that he had done up to that point- all the battles with Daring Do, all the work he had put into making sure that every event just had to come out exactly the way he had envisioned it in his mind- was all just steps on a giant staircase, leading to a door. And behind that door, where some would have seen mystery, only he saw clarity. Clarity of purpose, of meaning.

To put it simply, he was meant to rule. Not just over a few, but over all Equestria.

That metaphor wasn't just some abstraction, meant to put a physical presence behind his mental state of being. No, it was entirely literal to him. He'd seen it in a dream. He'd only had the dream once, and it had been thousands of moons since he'd had it, but ever since that fateful night when he still wasn't yet even considered an adult in his culture, long since died out from pestilence and war and all those other nasty, horrible things that usually end a nation's existence, he had known exactly what was behind that door. Even though in that dream, he'd never even opened the door (the dream had ended right before he could grasp the ornately-decorated door handle), he had known from the moment he'd awakened the vision that would have greeted his sight had he been able to open the door.

He would have seen himself, sitting upon a throne of gold in his temple, which had been situated on the highest cliff in all Equestria. From there, he would be able to look out over all his subjects, monitoring every aspect of their lives, just as a good ruler should. And ever since that dream, he had vowed to himself that he would make this sliver of the ethereal into a reality for himself.

Look at me now, though... he thought bitterly to himself. I'm a Celestia-damned disgrace.

He began to ruminate, as was often his wont, about what he could have changed- something small, maybe, or something profound about the very core of his being- that would have allowed him to have achieved his true destiny, rather than finding himself running from the very idea of what he could have been. Maybe he could have tightened up his defenses a bit more. Maybe he shouldn't have taken Caballeron on as his top advisor and go-getter, or allowed him to choose his own team of henchmen. Maybe he sbouldn't have stayed up in the temple the whole time, but instead have gone out on more missions of his own.

He was, after all, a being incredibly gifted in the art of stealth. The ability to blend in with his surroundings, to make himself entirely invisible, however, had always eluded him- though he did not blame himself for this, as the mystics of his race who were far more in tune with their magical abilities had not even been able to even begin to master that art. At one point, they had possessed that power, along with a whole slew of other neat abilities. Those had been lost to time, though, dying out with the Elder Council, the Five Kings, the Prince's Menagerie, and any one of a hundred-odd other factions that had warred for millennia for the dominance of his people.

Now, only one remained, and the only being who held dominance over him was himself.

He crested a hill, allowing the view that awaited him to wash over him. He sat back on his haunches, closing his eyes and letting the wind blow through his hair for the first time in- well, he didn't quite know exactly how long it had been. Quite a while, to be sure. The breeze wasn't too stiff, to where he felt as though he had to brace himself against it, but it wasn't so soft either, that he couldn't feel it well enough. It was simply perfect... The only thing in his entire existence that he could genuinely say that was.

He opened his eyes, trying to get a better bearing of where he was. Not that he could recognize any of the landmarks. He already knew that he'd never been in this area before, not a day in his life. He was incorrigibly lost, and strangely he was fine with that. Because, as he rationalized, if he didn't know where he was, and he happened across some being- pony, changeling, griffon, whatever- it stood an equally good chance that they would not know who he was either.

And right then, that's all he craved. Anonymity. He knew that he had not garnered himself as good of a reputation as he could have. But most of that, he reasoned, was Daring Do's fault anyways- or as she decided to call herself in her regular interactions with the common ponyfolk, A.K Yearling. If Yearling hadn't have published all those books, detailing every interaction, every fight, every nail-biting, harrowing turn of events, nopony would know who he was, or how “evil” he was. (Evil was such a strong word to him. He had never considered himself to be evil, not until this most recent turn of events in his life had forced him to retake stock of himself and his personal beliefs and thought structures. Then again, he knew that most people who were evil were like that as well, maybe with the exception of questioning whether or not they were evil, and why they were even wanting to do the things they were doing [or forcing other ponies to do], so he never had quite been able to reconcile those two vastly differing views of opinion.)

He saw a stream on the horizon. It looked like one of those that could have turned into a larger river further on down the line. And when there was a river, he mused, that most likely meant there was also a village somewhere along the line, and while he was fine with eating off the land, it'd been far too long since he'd been able to have (or more accurately, steal) a good home-cooked meal. His mouth watered at the mere thought of it.

He didn't dare just barge into the village, though. He'd learned very quickly on that his appearance was far from normal, and while he was used to other ponies fearing him, it had usually been because he seemed to possess a large amount of physical strength, or because he was able to project his voice very well and thus simply seemed to overall be a very imposing figure.

The villages he'd visited since then, though? They hadn't been afraid of him for any of those reasons. At least, they hadn't given any of the normal signs that this was the reason for their fear. No, this time around, it was simply because of his looks. He was different from them, unknown to them in many ways (besides the fact of his existence; this in particular was irrefutable) so they feared him- a concept that he had thought died out in the days of the famed explorer Amerihoof... Something-or-another. He couldn't quite remember his surname at the time, nor did he particularly care to.

He quickened his pace slightly, now heading towards the stream at the speed of what ponies would probably call a trot- or, as the one called Pinkie Pie referred to it as at one point, a “hop, skip, and a jump.” Whatever in Tartarus that meant. The trees began to zip past him at more than just a meandering stroll. His mouth was suddenly dry as a bone. He needed that water, more than anything.

A minute or so later, he reached the stream. He slowed to a regular walk and approached the river tentatively, scanning the surrounding areas for any sign of something out of the ordinary. He knew that there were groups of ponies who were after him, emboldened by his defeat. “Surely if Daring Do and Rainbow whatever can defeat him, then we can, too!” So many ponies now wanting to make his life a living hell.

Granted, he'd probably wronged them in some way in the past, so they most likely weren't out for his head for no real reason. He was, after all, an evil tyrant, so the things he did to the ponies that were around him- even those who had chosen to willingly associate themselves with him, and weren't in his presence simply because they were enslaved, or for some other reason that Ahuizotl was forcing upon them- were merely a logical extension of that. He had been evil, so he had done evil things. To him, doing wrong things was as natural as breathing or walking.

He shook his head slowly. How wrong he had been. And now look at him. A damned pitiful sight.

His scan of the forest in the immediate vicinity showed no signs of bands of ponies lurking in wait for him to let his guard down to present the exact perfect moment for them to strike, or traps laid in the hopes that he'd be stupid enough to blunder into them, or hidden and disguised well enough so that Ahuizotl's intelligence level didn't quite matter as much.

He crossed the final few steps to the stream and dipped his head down a bit, taking stock of the water itself. Clean. “Good,” he murmured to himself. He'd had far too many occasions of finding a pool of water or a stream just like this one, only to discover that it was tainted in some way (some dead animal polluting it, for example), or otherwise undrinkable due to being immensely dirty or the like.

He drank from the stream in great draughts, and from the moment the water touched his parched lips, he felt like he was in heaven- if there could even be said to be such a thing. He drank with abandon. It wasn't like he was depleting some finite resource, after all- and even if he was, there was nopony around for miles, as far as he could tell. Who cares how much he drank? It was his for the taking. He needed it. He-

“No!” he screamed aloud, flinging his head up from the water, causing a ripple effect in the stream as small pellets of water dislodged themselves from his muzzle and were airborne for a few seconds before landing safely back in the stream from whence they had come. He knew the signs of his thought process, and he was finding that he had to make a conscious effort to evict those kinds of thoughts from his mind before they were able to take root once again.

Those ways of feeling were the ways that got him into this situation, after all. And even if he weren't in this situation anymore, even if he had escaped the confines of being on the lam, he'd come to realize that simply put, those thoughts weren't right. They weren't what was best for him. And he knew it, and knew that he had to be the one to put the mental barriers up so those kinds of thoughts didn't start to influence him again.

Once the moment of pause had passed, he began to drink from the stream again. He took it a bit more slowly this time, now that he didn't feel as though he were about to die from dehydration- and, in no small part, due to the fact that his initial moment of glee had been severely tempered by the realization that his old, destructive habits were not dying at nearly the speedy rate that he had hoped they would.

When his thirst was sated, he laid down by the bank of the stream, simply staring into his own reflection. He thought to himself, “What is the next thing I should do? Where do I go next?” He wish he knew the answer to that.

He'd been thinking for quite a while about some places that he could go to, to where nopony could find him, to where he'd have the safety and anonymity he so desperately craved. His first idea had been to go to the Castle of the Two Sisters, the former ruling place of both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna before certain events beyond their control had forced them to relocate their place of power to the Royal Castle in Canterlot, where they continue to rule to this very day.

He'd shook that idea off, though, once he'd done a bit of reconnaissance and realized that the castle wasn't actually empty anymore. The Elements of Harmony had begun going there every once in a while, if not to refurbish the castle and re-beautify it as the one called Rarity was wont to do, then simply to get away from everypony else and avail themselves of the vast riches of the library in the castle. This was mostly Twilight Sparkle's doing, though every once in a while Rainbow Dash or Applejack would join her for a “day off” of sorts. So that was out of the question. There was just too big of a risk that he'd be caught, and forced away from the place.

He'd thought about some other places, each less likely than the last. Some far-away mountaintop where he could live in peace by himself? Then how would he survive? How would he get food, or water? So that was out of the question. The woods, near some unsuspecting village? Again, way too easy for him to get caught.

He didn't want to admit it to himself, and he'd been putting this particular thought out of his mind every time it had entered it- which was becoming a more and more recurring thing- but he was having to face a very hard truth: There very well could actually be no place for him in the world. He may very well be forced to wander for the rest of his life, seeking asylum and never finding it.

This wasn't even on his list of desires. He wanted to find someplace to settle down, to where he could live out the rest of his life without having to fear for being driven out by enraged ponies, or by those who didn't want to take the time to understand him and his reasonings for trying to change who he is at the very core of his being.

He got up, shaking his head slightly to clear out some mental cobwebs, and looked up at the sky. Clear as far as he could tell. This was good. This would make navigating the forest a lot easier on him. He began his way downstream, slowly and carefully.

The stream turned out to be much longer than he'd expected, but eventually he did make it to the end, and just as he'd thought, it did dead-end into a much larger river. He allowed himself a brief moment of self-congratulation as his senses hadn't quite yet been dulled from lack of use, before he began to follow the river now.

After only a few minutes of walking, he saw lights up ahead. He froze for a moment, before ducking behind a particularly large tree. He peered out, hoping that the lights weren't from some raiding party out to get him. They didn't seem as though they were getting closer, so he relaxed a bit. They were probably lights coming from a village.

He slowly made his way towards the village, constantly on the lookout around him for anypony trying to sneak up on him. After an intense few minutes, he had reached the edge of the village. He stopped, listening for any sort of activity there. He heard the crackling of a large fire in the center of town, and merry-sounding voices coming from that direction as well.

Sticking to the forest, he circled around the village to see what it was that was causing that noise. Sure enough, once he'd crested a large hill, allowing him to look out over the entire village, he saw a large bonfire in what he assumed was the town square. It was taking up nearly the entire square and was immensely high. He saw spits set up in intervals around the fire, cooking everything from pig to fowl.

And then, there were the ponies. The entire village had turned out for this event- not surprising, he mused, considering how little of note must go on in a village this remote. They were of all sizes and colors, some old, some very young. But all of them had one defining characteristic about them: To a pony, they were all smiling. Not a single one of them seemed to have a care in the world. They were all merry and jolly- a bit too much so, if he was reading them properly.

He sat on that hilltop and watched them for a few hours. They showed no signs of stopping the entire time. They feasted, they talked merrily amongst each other, they danced, they sang. It was all in all, a supremely festive event. But one thing stuck in his mind the most, and it absolutely refused to dislodge itself: What even was the point of this festival? There did not seem to be any signs of it being a commemoration of some village elder pony's life, or a celebration of some new birth. So why were they even doing any of this to begin with?

As he ruminated on this, his attention was diverted by a slight movement to his left. He whipped his head around in alarm, only to find a female pony walking up to him. He froze, not knowing what to think. He was surprised, though, when the pony merely sat down beside him and looked out at the bonfire, as he himself was doing.

“They call this the Calling of a God,” the pony said in an almost inaudible volume. “Our village is one that for whatever reason, constantly has to have a god to worship. The last being we called our god, left us about six months ago, and ever since then, we've been holding these ceremonies once a month, hoping our sacrifices and merriment will call a god to us to worship.” She scoffed, as though the mere mention of this was as banal as the idea itself. “I don't see why they do this, personally. Why do we even need a god?”

He didn't know if speaking to her was something that she would take an offense to, but at that moment he wasn't sensing any kind of hostility towards him, so he felt clear to speak for the time being. “No one wants to feel as though there's no purpose in their existence. We all want to think that we're here for a reason. And when a god leaves our lives, we can fall into a very deep trap of thinking that our purpose here in Equestria has left us as well.”

“While that may be true for some,” the pony replied, “I've always felt that nopony needs a god to tell them what their purpose is. I mean, isn't that what a cutie mark is for? To tell you what it is that your special talent is? Even those who don't have cutie marks have purpose. And they don't need some foolish god to tell them what that is.”

He liked her, for whatever reason. She was intelligent, rational. Two qualities that weren't shared by nearly any of the other ponies he'd had the unfortunately pleasure of meeting. He extended a paw to her. “Ahuizotl.”

She placed her hoof in his paw. “Loraszca. Everypony around here just calls me Lorrie, though. Much easier to remember. Even my Queen calls me that.”

This threw him for a loop. “Is that what you call your village elder? The Queen?”

She laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, no. I keep forgetting that you can't see through my disguise.” A flash of green light enveloped her, and she began to change form into an insect-like being, about the same size as a pony, except possessing both insectile wings and a jagged, ornately-patterned horn.

Once her transformation was finished, she spoke again. “Nopony in this village knows that I'm a changeling, and that's probably for the best. Our last god was a changeling- funny story about that. He'd been sent by Chrysalis to deliver a message to me. The village saw him and thought he'd been sent to be our new god. So, they kind of kept him here for about a year or so, before Chrysalis finally got fed up with them worshiping him and came here herself in the middle of the night to get him back.”

This brought up more than a few questions for him. “So how often does your village go through gods?”

She laughed, and this time he felt it was a genuine laugh. “Way more often than they should. Some of the village elders- and I do mean elders, as I'm pretty damn sure at least one of them has been around since the founding of the village, and that was like seven hundred or so years ago- believe that a curse was put on our village at some point, to drive away any and all who would deign to be worshiped as a god here. The one that I mentioned that I'm pretty sure has found immortality somehow, his name is Great Wonder, and he believes that the curse was put on us by the first god we ever worshiped- a being by the name of Chrendotl.”

Ahiuzotl tried to keep his face aloof, but on the inside his heart was racing. He recognized that name. Chrendotl had been an outcast from his tribe, a heretic for his forays into necromancy- a practice (the only practice, in fact) that had been outlawed by his tribe since the beginning. So when Chrendotl had been banished from the tribe, he'd come here? And then cursed the village once they'd undoubtedly found out about his necromantic ways and driven him out?

This was much too specific of a coincidence to be accidental. He was supposed to come here on this night. And if he was meant to come here...

“What would your village say if they saw me?” he asked, hoping he'd asked the question in such a way that it hadn't revealed any other sort of grand design behind it, other than being just an innocent question.

The changeling thought for a moment. “I'm not quite sure, actually. On the one hoof, they are in the middle of the Calling of a God, so they might not appreciate the interruption. On the other hoof...” She looked up at him, as he was easily three or four times her size.

“Have you ever had aspirations at godhood?”

The question threw him into a mental tizzy. There was no way she could know about his dream, could she? He'd never had the chance to study a changeling at any sort of length, so he had no idea if they were mind-readers, or had some other sort of telepathic powers that not even he could begin to understand.

As he opened his mouth to answer, a thought washed over him, and it was one that both chilled and intrigued him at the same time: He had absolutely no desire to lie to her. This changeling, that he'd just met and that he didn't know from Starswirl, had somehow lowered his defenses so much that he straight-up didn't even have the desire to mislead her. And so, he told her everything. The dream, the golden throne, all of his troubles and adventures since that point.

She listened to him intently, only interrupting to whisper exclamations of disbelief. When he'd finished, she simply shook her head. “From what you've told me, you deserve to be worshiped as a god, if only because you need a bit of R&R.” She smiled at him, the first time in forever that anypony had done that willingly. “Come on down. I think we just found our new god.”

They began the descent down the hill, and a moment or so later, they'd crossed into the village itself. Because of the way they were entering, it just so happened that the entire village's worth of ponies had been dancing facing that exact way. Once they saw him and Lorrie re-enter the village (he noticed that at some point, as well, she'd shifted back into her regular pony form, with a white coat and tan mane/tail, and a cutie mark of a heart being pierced by two arrows), they stopped as one, staring slack-jawed at the pair. The only sound that could be heard, was the crackling of the fire.

One pony stepped up tentatively. He looked to be the oldest out of all of them, so Ahuizotl assumed that he was the one that Lorrie had been talking about, the one named Great Wonder. He sized Ahuizotl up with his eyes, before speaking to them. “Who are you? And why have you come here?”

Lorrie, thankfully, spoke in his stead. “His name is Ahuizotl, and he is on the run from a group of ponies who wish to do him harm. He wishes to remain here for the time being, until he can be sure that it is safe for him to leave.”

Great Wonder's shoulders slumped a little bit, and Lorrie knew exactly why. She crossed the few feet that remained between the two of them, and whispered something into his ear. He brightened up immediately and turned to face the rest of the village. “The heavens have heard our cries!” he said in a booming voice that seemed out of place, coming from an elderly body like his own. “They have sent us a god to worship! Let us rejoice in the presence of our new god... Ahuizotl!”

The entire village erupted into cheers, before prostrating themselves on bended knee before him, offering their undying loyalty and allegiance to him. He looked at Lorrie, who was grinning like a madmare.

“Well, it's no golden throne...” she said, laying a hoof on his flank. “But I think you'll like it here.”

The Village Life

“Show me around the village.”

Loraszca stirred slightly, moaning in that sort of way that indicated that she'd just been rudely awakened from an excellent sleep, one that probably had been long-awaited, and most likely few and far between at that. She brushed the sleep from her eyes, still trying to focus on who was standing there in front of her, that giant form with blue fur and-

She groaned. “What time is it...?” she murmured sleepily. “And why are you waking me up so early?”

Ahuizotl looked rather perplexed at this. “So early? This is early for you?” He thought about it for a second. “Well, I guess it's probably early for me, too. Late, as well.”

Lorrie sat up and plopped down onto the floor, landing on all fours. Elegance be damned, she thought. This.... thing... woke her up early, and she wasn't about to try to pretend that she liked it.

“What in Equestria are you talking about?” she asked, padding softly over to her makeshift sink. She checked the bucket underneath it, and groaned. “Damn it all, I just got water yesterday. And now I have to go get it again...”

Ahuizotl cocked his head. “You don't have any kind of running water?”

“Nope,” she replied curtly. “We haven't had any kind of utilities here for a while. Not for a lack of trying, mind you. Chrendotl's curse basically set us back to the Stone Ages. We had electricity, running water, the works. Now look at us. All of us have to get our water from the well that's in the center of the village, and we light everything with candles and lanterns.”

“You think it was his curse that did this to you? He must have been a very powerful magic user.”

Lorrie absent-mindedly flipped a lock of hair out of her face as she used her magic to levitate the bucket from underneath the sink. “Our village has been on some very hard times since Chrendotl left, I think I mentioned. The whole water and power thing is only a part of it. We basically spend all of our time hunting and gathering food, and that's not even so we can eat. It's for the Calling of the God. We wanted our offerings to the gods to be everything we had, so that the gods would see that we were truly serious about calling one of them to be our patron.”

This flabbergasted him. “So you all don't really eat? How do you survive?”

“Well, everyone else doesn't eat. I do, but that's because I don't eat the same things that the rest of the ponies in the village do.” Seeing the look of befuddlement on his face, she added, “You're not familiar with changelings, are you?”

“Not very,” he admitted, “other than just knowing they exist. And to be honest, I really hadn't actually seen one in the flesh before I met you.”

“Modest and truthful. I like that. Good qualities of a god who won't betray us all to the Wolves.” She smiled again at him, simple and innocent. And again, he could tell that she genuinely meant it. She liked being around him, or at least intensely tolerated him.

Something about what she said gave him a slight pause, though. “These... Wolves. You seem to place a great significance on them. Am I to assume that these are not just ordinary wolves?”

“You catch on quick,” she replied, her smile fading slightly. “You're absolutely correct These aren't regular wolves. The Wolves aren't even wolves at all, at least not like the ones that the average ponyfolk is used to.”

“Then what are they?”

“We don't know,” Lorrie replied as she branched off a second tendril of magic to snap open the crude lock that she'd fashioned for her hut's door and swing it outward- all the way, she made sure, to give Ahuizotl enough room to get out, as well as herself with the bucket. “They just showed up one day, about ten or so years ago. They claimed to be representatives of an advanced species, and stated that they had been watching us for a very long time. They knew that we had been through an awful lot of tough times, and they wanted to make things better on us.”

“Had you ever seen anything like them before?”

Lorrie shook her head, shutting the door as soon as they were both through. “They looked basically like ponies, except they were incredibly tall, each of them shimmering with a thousand scales, as though we were looking at a rainbow fish of sorts- except obviously these beings looked nothing like fish.”

Ahuizotl racked his brain as they descended the steps of her hut, trying to think of any time a being of that sort had been mentioned in any of the ancient texts that his species had kept for millennia. He couldn't think of any off the top of his head, which perplexed him. “So what did they want with you, then?”

“Simply put, they wanted to help us. To give us the secrets to some long-lost magic that only they knew about. They claimed it was the key to unlocking the Great Potential inside of us all, and that we could become the greatest city in Equestria if we used this magic for ourselves.”

“Sounds like a load of horseapples to me,” he remarked offhoofedly.

“That was what Great Wonder thought as well,” she acknowledged. “His family are all lorists- ponies who have specialized in familiar and tribal record-keeping since the beginning. And he had never heard of these Wolves- well, they didn't call themselves that at first; he's never revealed what exactly they referred to themselves as at first- or this long-lost magic that they spoke of. So he turned them down. He saw them as shysters, just a group of freak-show ponies taking their act on the road, trying to sucker in gullible ponies for a quick buck. He sent them away from the village, warning that if they ever came back, he would be forced to use physical force on them to send them away for good.”

“And have they ever showed up again?”

“Well no, not technically. They've been wise enough to stay out of our business and leave us be well enough alone. But then... there are the disappearances.”

Ahuizotl nearly stopped in his tracks. This was becoming more and more like a horror story by the second... and not the good kind that makes sense all the way through either. “Pardon me if this sounds a bit unbelievable... but ponies are just disappearing from the village and no one even cares? It would seem to me like this would be a thing that would be a constant cause for alarm.”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you?” Lorrie sniggered, “but the sad fact of the matter is, the ponies in this village are so incredibly stuck in their ways that they really don't even care to address the matter- well, except for the whole 'we need a god' thing. That part, they're real sticklers about. Now that you're here, though, they can finally stop talking about it as though it's this event that will end the existence of this village as we know it.”

They arrived at the well and Lorrie attached the bucket to the spindle, lowering it down into the well to draw the water out. “So does no one go out to look for these ponies? They just... leave them to die or whatever?”

Lorrie scoffed as she tested the weight of the bucket to see if it was full enough yet. “You know what I think? I think it's just ponies who get tired of all the spiritual mysticism and bullshit about this place, and leave to go back to wherever they came from to begin with. I mean, it's all enticing and whatnot. Get away to a village out in the middle of Luna-forsaken nowhere, start a whole new life, nopony to look over your shoulder and wonder if they've caught up to you. Nopony knows who you are here, other than 'that other new pony', and that's how they like it.”

She began to wheel the bucket back up to the surface. “And when they leave, it hurts us as a community, because we're kind of dependent upon everypony to chip in and help out- you know, because of the curse or the fact that no one here knows their hoof from their flank, or whatever reason they come up with this time. We're an insular group, and when somepony leaves, that job that they fulfilled in the village has to be taken up by everypony else, which makes it harder on us all. Though to me personally, I don't care.” She levitated the bucket carefully up into the air, balancing it on the top of her head.

“To be frank, I'm happy whenever somepony leaves the village. That means they came to their senses and realized that nopony should ever have to live this way. That's one more woke pony in the world, and Luna knows we need more of those in existence.”

“It sounds like you and the rest of the village are so diametrically opposed...” Ahuizotl remarked as they started to head back to her hut. “So why are you even here to begin with? Why would you willingly associate yourself with ponies with whom you hold no real connection with, ponies who have such... outlandish beliefs?”

She stopped and looked directly into Ahuizotl's eyes, and he saw a fire smoldering in them that he hadn't seen in a pony's eyes in ages. It caught him a bit off guard, and he (wisely) chose to remain silent in the face of it.

“Don't make the same mistake I did when I first came here,” she warned. “Just because they believe things that don't sound like they make any sense at all, doesn't mean I don't have a connection with them. Their beliefs may not make a lick of sense to anyone in the outside world, but their belief in the tenets they follow is true as rain, genuine as they come. I can't say that about any other group of ponies I've ever met. They're all so... wishy-washy. They don't want to commit to one belief or another. These ponies? They don't care at all. They believe what they believe, in spite of what anyone has to say about it, and I respect them immensely for it.”

She broke his gaze and began to walk again, Ahuizotl trailing behind her like an obedient puppy. This changeling was unlike any being he had ever encountered before. She was mysterious but kind, firm but loving, wise and knowledgeable and yet at the same time unwilling to simply accept what she saw at face value without questioning it. He honestly wished more ponies were like her. And then he remembered when she had basically said the same thing to him, not so long ago.

“So when are we going to tour the village like you said?” he asked as they ascended the steps to her hut. She swung the door open and walked in, waiting until he was inside to shut it. She set the bucket under the sink, levitating a crude washcloth over to her in order to bathe. She dropped her disguise, revealing herself once again as changeling. She began to bathe herself, taking the utmost care not to miss a single spot of her chitined exterior.

“After I get done with this,” she replied after a moment. “I still haven't explained to you fully about the Wolves yet, either. And you still need to introduce yourself, after all.”

Until that point, he had simply been gazing listlessly out the window, just thinking about the things he had been told about this village and their inhabitants. At this tidbit, though, he snapped himself back to reality and leveled his gaze at her. “What do you need to know about me?”

“Anything, really.” She continued to wash herself while talking. “I need to be able to tell the Council something if they ask about you. And even if I didn't, I'm curious. You don't look like anything I've ever seen before- and believe me, I've seen a lot.”

“You changelings get out a lot?” he said in a semi-joking matter.

“While you jest, it's not too far from the truth. Queen Chrysalis is constantly sending her drones out on recon missions. She leaves the risky ones for her trusted advisors, though- and me, naturally. I'm the only one outside of her advisors court that she would trust with a mission like this.”

“So you're on a mission. What's the objective?”

She draped the washcloth on the edge of the sink and levitated a towel over to her, drying herself off. “It's weird, you know. I normally don't like bathing myself in front of anyone. Even my Queen knew that I preferred to bathe alone. It's just always weirded me out, knowing that others could be watching me while I clean myself. But I don't have a problem with it around you.”

“That is weird,” Ahuizotl acknowledged. “But that doesn't answer my question about your mission.”

“I know,” she replied flippantly. “There's a reason for that. I'm not supposed to tell anyone what I'm doing here. That's why I haven't revealed myself to be a changeling yet- well that, and I'm pretty sure they don't tolerate other members outside their race very well.”

Upon seeing the look of confusion on his face, she continued: “They believe that earth ponies are destined to rise up and rule Equestria someday. Their justification for this is some old passage, 'The meek shall inherit Equestria' or whatnot. They take it to mean themselves as earth ponies, because pegasi and unicorns have 'great advantages' over them that they could never hope to surmount. Pegasi can fly, and unicorns obviously have magic. Earth ponies have neither, and they've always resented that. So, Great Wonder promises them that one day they should be able to rise up and take Equestria back for themselves. That's what this whole colony is all about.”

“But there are pegasi here too, aren't there?” Ahuizotl pointed out, now severely more confused than ever. “I saw a few of them assisting Great Wonder at the ceremony I inadvertently crashed last night.”

She nodded as she finished toweling off. “The only reason why Great Wonder allows pegasi in the village at all is because even he acknowledges that there is some work that needs to be done, basic maintenance on the village, that earth ponies can't do by themselves- repairing some of the lookout posts, gathering nuts and fruits from high up in the trees, that kind of stuff. That doesn't stop them from thinking that the pegasi are beneath them though.”

“But what do the pegasi think? Surely they can't have no problem with this. I mean, Great Wonder is almost literally calling them nothing. Why would they continue to be around these ponies who have such intense disdain for them?”

“I have a few hunches,” she replied. “I think some of them might have come from a place where for whatever reason, they weren't accepted among the populace, so even if these people don't like their species as a whole, they're willing to overlook that for the solace of belonging to a group that actually wants them around. Either that, or they genuinely do want societal change, and they're willing to accept tenets of any belief structure that offers that... in spite of how biased towards them they really are.”

“So basically, the intelligence level of this village isn't that high,” he remarked. “And there's no magic here at all.”

“Nope. Great Wonder has forbidden it. That's why whenever I practice my magic, I have to do so when I'm alone, either at night or just when I'm pretty sure nopony else is around.” She jumped up onto her bed and lay down, facing the ceiling. “So what else do you want to know about the Wolves? Or about village life in general? Or about me, heavens forbid?” She chuckled a bit at that last one.

Ahuizotl had a lot of questions, mostly concerning Great Wonder and his belief structure, but he felt like he'd pressed the issue enough as it was. And besides, there was one more thing that he needed to know. After all, a village god shouldn't be completely clueless about the village he's the god of, right?

“Feel up for giving me that tour now?”

She groaned. “Oh yeah, there's that too... Alright fine, let's go. It won't take too long, I hope. There's really only like four or five major landmarks in the village that you should really care about. Other than that, just ask me whatever I guess, about the village or something. I'll answer just about any question you have, unless it's about my mission or my favorite color.”

“Why not your favorite color?” he asked bemusedly.

She hopped down off the bed and shot him a playful wink. “Because I don't have one.” She opened the door and let him out first, before exiting behind him.

She walked him around for a little bit before stopping at a wooden structure that was a sight bigger than the rest of the buildings in the village. “This is Great Wonder's personal hut,” she explained. “That's why it's bigger than the others. He believes that as the ruler of the village, his living quarters should reflect that. Any business a villager might have with the chief is also done in there. Also, and this is kind of important, any business done with the chief is never spoken aloud outside the hut, unless it's a matter that affects the entire village.”

“Why so secretive, you think?”

She shrugged. “I have my own opinions about that, but this is neither the time nor the place to be answering them. Everypony should be getting up pretty soon and starting their daily duties, so I don't want any information to cross the wrong ears.”

They walked around for a bit more after that. She explained to him about some of the various types of trees around the village, which produced what kind of fruit, which to avoid because they were poisonous, and so on. Before long, they found themselves at the bonfire site that he had been watching just the previous night, at the Calling of a God ceremony.

As though she had read his mind, she spoke up: “It looks a lot different in the daytime, doesn't it? Not nearly as... ominous as it does when the Inferno's raging.”

“So what's it going to be used for now? I mean, what did it ever get used for other than Calling ceremonies?”

She thought for a second. “Come to think of it, not much, really. The pursuit of a god was kind of all-consuming to the tribe- well, technically, it was all-consuming to Great Wonder. The rest of the village just follows along, hanging on his every word. I always thought it was odd, really.”

“What's that?”

“That he never demanded to be worshiped as a god himself. I mean, if he truly has found the secret to eternal life, he could rule this colony as its god for the rest of his unnaturally-long life, if he wanted to. But he doesn't, at least not from what I've seen. He just wants to have power over those whom he deems worthy. He doesn't want to be worshiped, or called a god. He just wants a god to call his own.”

“I think that's something we should mention to the chief eventually. I mean, now that I'm here and I guess I'm ok with being this village's god, we really should start tending to the dietary needs of the villagers- I mean, except for you.” He realized something just then. “Which reminds me. Earlier you said you don't need to feed on what everypony else feeds on. So what do you eat?”

She looked around to see if anypony had come out of their huts yet, then beckoned him down to whisper something into his ear. He acquiesced.

“It's love, Ahuizotl.”

That was not the answer that he was expecting. “Love. You feed off... love?”

Lorrie nodded. “That's what all of our species feed on. We literally derive our life sustenance from the love that ponies share for one another- well, love given freely by any species, technically, but pony love is the sweetest. It tastes the best to me, and to a lot of other members of my species. And despite how deluded these backwoods ponies are, I can say this about them: I can't really identify which type of love they have for each other, whether it be a genuine, true love, or just one borne out of necessity, but they do love each other. And let me tell you- their love is filling. I don't even have to feed but once a day now, and I'm sated until the next day. It's pretty nice.”

This was opening up entirely new worlds of thought to Ahuizotl. There was literally a species in Equestria that didn't even have to feed to survive. Rather, they lived off an emotion so intangible, it was often applied to situations that it had no business being applied to. And yet it was still real enough to provide sustenance to an entire species?

They walked on for a bit longer, talking about small things: what happened in the village's daily routine (there definitely was one), how often new ponies happened to show up in the village. She even gave him some tips on how to fit in, reminders of customs that the village had that he probably wouldn't have known about beforehoof had she not told him, and only discovered when he violated them and he was staring down an angry chief wanting to know why.

They got to a large building, though it was visibly smaller than the chief's hut. She pointed to it. “This is our storehouse. As you can probably tell, it's not that full, since the Calling was just last night. Soon though, it'll fill back up. And hopefully, we can convince them, like you said, to start using these offerings a bit more productively... Like say, to feed the villagers themselves.”

Ahuizotl was about to ask something else of Lorrie when he heard hoofsteps fast approaching. Whoever was heading towards them was running at a pure sprint. A few seconds later, a caramel-colored earth pony rocketed past them, heading in the direction of the chief's tent. Lorrie looked at Ahuizotl, and he at her. They understood at once, and followed the pony to the hut as fast as they could.

When they arrived, the pony had already flung open the door and was attempting to rouse the chief. Great Wonder snapped his eyes open and got up quick as a flash. “What is it?” he asked with a raspy, “I just woke up” voice. “What did you see?” While he was asking this, Lorrie explained that he was one of the camp's scouts, sent out on a daily basis to patrol the surrounding woods for any sign of danger.

He panted hard as he tried to catch his breath, but the next words he said were heard loud and clear by all those in attendance.

“The Wolves... They approach.”

The Approaching Wolves

Ahuizotl looked inside at the Chief, wondering what his reaction to this would be. He didn't have to wait very long. The scout ran out the door, followed by what appeared to be a rather expensive-looking vase. It shattered on the ground, a few steps away from the scout, who was heading in the direction of his hut, obviously not keen on having anything else thrown at him for the time being.

He looked at Loraszca. “So what do we do?” He noticed the look on her face. Though she was trying to remain stoic, he could see the tinge of fear in her eyes. This was not something she wanted, obviously.

“I'm not sure,” she replied, still fixating her gaze on the open door of the chief's hut. “Remember how you were asking for more information about the Wolves?” He nodded. “Well, it's about time I told you. Because you do not want to piss these guys off. And they seemed to me like the type of ponies to get very mad that you don't know everything about them.”

Ahuizotl adopted a befuddled expression onto his face. “Wait, I thought you said nopony knew very much at all about the Wolves. So how can they be mad if nopony knows anything about them, if they're so secretive?”

Loraszca shrugged. “I guess you just have to have a willingness to know. I'm not entirely sure. I've never actually met the Wolves face-to-face. They always request a lone audience with the chief, and then he just relays to us what they said after they've left.”

Something about that just didn't sit well with Ahuizotl. “So you have no way of knowing if what the chief tells you is actually what they're saying. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe he's not telling you the true message? Or that maybe the Wolves don't want him to say anything to you at all, but he makes stuff up anyways?”

“That is entirely a possibility,” she acknowledged, “but until one of the village members gets an invite into the meeting, there's really no way to know for sure.”

“So what are we supposed to do while they're here?” he asked, scanning the horizon for any sign of their immediate approach. So far, he spotted no movement. He was pretty sure he would, if they were actually within sight distance of the camp. One of the things he was always pretty good at was tracking movements. Being a scout, so to speak.

“We'll go back to my hut. And while we're there, I'll tell you everything I know about the Wolves- or rather, everything that's been relayed to me in a rather half-assed second-hoof manner.” He nodded, still looking out for any sign of them.

A sharp jab in his side got his attention back. “I mean, now. The Wolves don't want anypony out in the streets when they arrive. Not even our scouts. Everypony must go into their huts and wait there until the chief gives the all-clear signal that they've left.”

Ahuizotl once again found himself more than a bit dumbfounded. Not the first time that day, either. It was becoming, in his eyes, a far too regular occurrence for his liking. “So let me get this straight. Nopony's allowed to look at them, hear what they have to say, interact with them at all really. Nopony aside from the chief, who then can take any liberties with what they said and nopony would ever be the wiser? How much sense does any of this really make?”

She started to push him gently towards the direction of her hut. He was about to protest, but cut his sentence off before it came out. Now was not the time nor the place to berate her about this. They had to be alone in her hut in a moment anyways, apparently. He'd save his questions for then. He began to walk towards the hut, though at a much slower pace than was probably necessary. He also continued to look out to see if he could catch a glimpse of these Wolves.

By the time they got to the hut and made their way inside, he still hadn't seen any sign of them. As soon as the door was shut and properly secured, he turned to her. “So what happens if they don't show up? What happens if the guard was just hallucinating or something? I mean, that's basically what these Wolves sound like, from what you described them as. Just a bad acid trip.”

Lorrie chuckled a bit. “Oh, no. They are definitely not a bad acid trip. I should know. Before I wound up here in the village, that was kind of my thing. Well that, and what I refer to as 'spicy love'.”

He wasn't familiar with the term. “Spicy love? What even is that?”

She hopped up onto her bed and laid down, resting her head on her forehooves. “Not many ponies would realize this, seeing as they don't feed off love like us Changelings do, but different kinds of love actually have different flavors. If two ponies are just being overly sweet towards each other, it's a very saccharine love. If they're making up after being mad at each other, or are trying their best to keep a fight to a minimum because they don't want to hurt each other, their love has more of a sour flavor to it, like fresh-squeezed lemons.

“And then there's my personal favorite, spicy love. It's becoming much harder to find nowadays, because ponies tend to settle down for a very long time once they've found their mate. But when ponies first meet, and they have that wild, giddy sort of love for each other, like they want to try out anything and everything together, because they're on cloud nine that they've finally found a pony who loves them, understands them, wants to be with them... It lends the love a rather spicy aftertaste, and I can't get enough of it.”

This conversation was so fascinating, Ahuizotl almost forgot about the Wolves entirely. Almost. He walked back over to the door, parting the blinds slightly to look out of them. “Keep talking, I'm still listening,” he said over his shoulder. “I just want to see if I can catch a glimpse of these Wolves for myself.”

He recognized that Lorrie had said something in response, but the specific words that she was saying got lost in what seemed to be a void, because at that exact point, the Wolves strode into view. The first thing that Ahuizotl processed was that Lorrie had seriously underplayed their regality. They walked with an air of nobility, with the sort of loping strut of a pony who knew that they held power in their hooves, and they wanted everyone to remember it as well. Their stride was purposeful, though. They knew they had a mission to accomplish, and they were dead-set on completing it.

What amazed him the most, though, was their look. They were easily as tall as him, and he was no slouch. He estimated that he was about twice as tall as the average pony (obviously leaving the alicorn princesses as outliers, considering they were almost as tall as he was, minus Twilight, who hadn't seemed to have grown at all since her ascension to alicornhood and her subsequent coronation), and these beings appeared to be just as tall as him.

He also noticed that she hadn't been exaggerating about their coats. It reminded him vaguely of dragon scales, tightly locked against each other to keep out any sort of attack that might be made to pierce their hides. The coloration, again, had been described spot-on. As they walked, they shimmered with a bright aura, the hues vivid as a fresh rainbow. He was absolutely transfixed by them- which is why he almost didn't notice when one of them stopped and leveled its gaze directly at him.

Its eyes were the purest gold, though he thought he could see tiny flecks of silver and grey mottling the irises, albeit those were barely able to be distinguished from what normally would have been the whites of the eyes on any other being. He could see a hundred different facets of their gaze: inquisitive, yet knowledgeable; wondrous, yet somehow saddened by whatever it is that they saw; stern, yet loving. He suddenly felt the strangest desire to open Lorrie's door and go out there to meet them for himself. It took every fiber of his mental faculties to stop himself from doing so.

As the Wolf turned its gaze back to its brethren and began to walk at a slightly more brisk pace to catch up with them, a light turned on in Ahuizotl's head. He had thought from the moment the Wolf had looked at him, that he had somehow recalled where he had seen those eyes before. He couldn't put an exact finger on it, but he hadn't quite been able to place it.

Now, he could. And the conclusion he arrived at was terrifying him. So, he shoved it out of his mind, dismissing it as a trick of the light, or just his own overactive imagination getting the best of him again. He closed the blinds the rest of the way, and turned to face Lorrie.

Lorrie was staring intently at him. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Did one of them see you looking at them.”

“I'm fine,” he said, dismissing her concern with a wave of his paw. “And for your information, no, none of them saw me. But I sure saw them.” He hoped that she wouldn't question him about his lie- not that she had any reason to. She hadn't seen them through the blinds, or so he hoped.

“So now do you believe me?” She settled back down onto her bed, having gotten up onto her hind haunches, sitting in a somewhat upright position like a cat normally would before settling down fully onto whatever surface it was going to rest on.

He nodded, exhaling almost imperceptibly. She hadn't called him out on it- or at the very least, had just decided that doing so was not the wisest course of action at the time being. “Your chief seemed to have accurately described them, from what you told me. They basically looked exactly like you described, though I wasn't quite expecting them to be so... majestic.”

“Majestic?” she asked quizzically. “You mean like royalty?”

“Yep,” he replied. “That's basically the feel I got from them. They act like they run the place, or at least have the capability to do so. It's what I assume your queen Chrysalis acts like when she is prowling the halls of her castle.”

Lorrie could imagine what that would look like, as she was well familiar with the way Chrysalis behaved around the castle. “Have they gone into the chief's hut yet?”

“They had just passed our hut when I turned around.” He went back over to the door and peeked out of the blinds again. None of the Wolves were in sight, and he could hear a vague voice coming from the other end of the village. It sounded similar to the chief's voice, though that may have just been due to the distance it was taking to travel from here to there. “It sounds like they're talking. I think I hear the chief's voice, anyways.”

Lorrie nodded and laid back down. “So all we have to do now, is wait for them to leave.” She closed her eyes for a second. “So what else do you want to know about the Wolves? I'll tell you if I know, but I'm not entirely sure if I will.”

He thought for a second while he sat down at the foot of Lorrie's bed. Whatever kind of wood it was that made up her flooring wasn't completely uncomfortable, but it wasn't quite the lush, padded throne that he had been used to before Daring Do had completely destroyed his temple. “Why you guys? I mean, was it ever revealed why it was your village in particular that had been chosen by the Wolves for them to reveal themselves to? It would seem more appropriate for them to, say, go to Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. Hell, even Cadance or Shining Armor in the Crystal Empire would have been a more appropriate choice. Why this village?”

Lorrie shrugged. “That's a completely valid question, and one that I've never been able to get an answer to. I've even asked Great Wonder a few times, when it's just been himself and me sitting around somewhere, but he's never given me a straight answer. I don't think even he knows. Probably doesn't care, either. All he cares about is that whatever dreams he's had are finally coming true.”

This rang a bell in Ahuizotl's head. “Speaking of which, why does he not embrace them for who they are? If they truly do possess this ancient powerful magic, then why would he not want that magic for himself? If he had it, he could probably go through with his plan of gathering the earth ponies to overtake Equestria. With a magic that ancient and powerful at his back, who would be able to stop him?”

“No one,” she replied. “And I think that's the reason why he still allows these visits from the Wolves. They are very sporadic, from what I can tell- usually once every couple of years or so. I think he's trying to feel them out, so to speak. Figure out if they're legit or not. Even though he doesn't believe them now, I think he wants to, and he's attempting to get any sort of information that could lead to him coming to terms with the fact that they really do have this power.”

He was about to reply when there was a knock on the door. They both froze for a moment. Ahuizotl's eyes darted to hers. “Have they ever knocked before?” he whispered softly. She shook her head, and his heart dropped. So there was no precedent for this. Lovely. So much for having some previous experience to fall back on for guidance.

“What do you want?” Lorrie called out.

“They want the two of you in the cabin,” came an unfamiliar voice. It didn't sound like one of the Wolves, though for all they knew it could have been, since none of them had actually heard what any of the Wolves sound like. Ahuizotl got up and walked to the door, flipping one of the blinds back to see who it was.

The scout who had come back with the news was standing there in front of the door. Ahuizotl mentally kicked himself. He had heard the scout's voice when he relayed the message the first time. Why didn't he remember what he sounded like? “They're saying it's urgent, so... you might want to get over there as quick as you can.” He stepped off the porch area to head back to the elder's hut.

Ahuizotl turned back to Lorrie. “The scout from earlier. That's who was outside. Apparently we're wanted in the chief's hut. Though as to why, I haven't a clue...”

“Well, I can bet as to why you're wanted,” Lorrie stated, hopping off the bed and shifting back into her regular pony form. “You are the village god, after all. It would make sense that they'd want to talk to you at some point. The last time they were here when we had a god, they did the same thing. I'm not a hundred percent sure about why they want me, though...”

“I think I have an idea,” he said, opening the door. “You were the one who brought me into the village, after all. Maybe they see you as my caretaker or something. At least somepony who can keep me in check, keep me from destroying the whole village or whatever.”

“Could you? Destroy the village, I mean.”

He wasn't expecting that question. “I don't think so. I may be rather large in size, but my thing has always been the more mental side of life. And even back when I was into the whole 'being an evil tyrant threatening to destroy the whole world' thing- which wasn't really that long ago, mind you- I don't think I'd ever have actually done it. I mean, who wants to rule over a world with nopony in it? That whole golden throne thing sounds much less appealing if the world's a barren wasteland.”

She pursed her lips for a second. He could tell that wasn't quite the answer that she was wanting, but he was hoping she wasn't going to pursue it further. And even if she had, he would have just reminded her that the chief was wanting them in his hut, so there really wasn't any time for them to pursue this line of thought anymore.

Lucky for him, he didn't have to. She apparently decided it was better to save this for a later time, and she sidestepped him to get out the door.

They walked in silence to the chief's hut. He could tell she was ruminating about what he'd just told her. She already knew about him being a tyrant in his former life, though. He'd revealed that to her the first night they'd met- only two nights previously. “Has it only been that long?” he thought to himself. “Seems much longer than that... Maybe there's something to being here after all, if I've turned my thought patterns around this much so quickly...”

They entered the hut, keeping the same pattern of reverent silence. Upon entering the hut, the first thing that Ahuizotl noticed was that it seemed a bit... smaller than it appeared to be outside. This was slightly unnerving to him. Most places he'd seen or heard of were bigger on the inside, or so the phrase went. Some sort of magic he'd had placed on the inside? But why even?

His thought pattern was swiftly dispelled though, when he and Lorrie came to a halt in front of the Wolves. Whatever resplendence he thought he'd seen from the inside of Lorrie's hut was a mere taste of what he was seeing now. Their majesty seemed to be multiplied a hundredfold now that he was able to see them up close. His eyes were drawn to a jagged scar alongside one of their flanks. This was a good thing, he thought. At least this meant they were able to be hurt. If push came to shove, he could use this to his advantage.

Their intense gaze met his. He was transfixed by their eyes. He saw in them a rainbow of colors. He could have swore that he'd remembered them being much more solid in color earlier. Now that he was only a few feet away from them, he saw that their eyes glistened with as many radiant hues as their coats. It was honestly a bit disconcerting, if only because he found himself a bit unable to tell where their eyes ended and their faces began. Not something that he was at all used to.

They stared at each other for what seemed to be an eternity, none of them saying anything. The chief sat in the corner, darting his eyes around to take in the entire situation. He wanted to be able to jump in, just in case any tensions were to arise, so that he could calm hot tempers and flaring tongues before any of them said something they would have to regret or take back later. Nopony wanted to do that, after all.

Ahuizotl was a moment away from speaking to the Wolves when he heard a voice in his mind, echoing throughout the deepest reaches. “You are not like the others... Can you hear us?” His jaw almost dropped. Telepathy? So that's how they were able to speak and not be heard by anyone outside the chief's hut?

He tried to mentally compose himself before attempting to send back a mental ping. “Yes, but... I'm very much unfamiliar with how telepathy works. I've never attempted it before. Not even the sages of my people dabbled in it much when they were still alive.”

A rich laugh echoed throughout his mind. “Telepathy, as you very well know, is the art of speaking between two minds. Unspoken thought to communicate whatever it is that you want. So how would you know if telepathy is being used if you were not being included in on the conversation? Or had found a way to tap into someone's mind to read their thoughts?”

Ahuizotl was dumbfounded. He had been such a fool. Of course it was entirely possible for his sages to have perfected telepathy, maybe even far before he had been born. How would he have been able to know?

“Embarrassment aside,” he replied, trying to shove his disconcerted thoughts out of his mind, lest they decide to explore it further, “what is it that you would want of me? And Lorrie, for that matter. We are not the chief. We do not have the reach of power in this village that he does.”

One of the other Wolves spoke. “You have more power here than you realize. Though you are not the head of the village, and while Great Wonder likes to pretend he is all-powerful, your influence upon the people is growing by the day. Remember that we are able to see and hear things that nopony else can. We can see thoughts written plain as day, as though they were words in a tome. We can hear echoes coming from the deepest recesses of minds, ones that they themselves may not even be aware of. And you, my friend, command respect. But more than that, you command fear. And Great Wonder, though it pains himself greatly to admit so, cannot count himself out of that group of ponies.”

So his presence in the village wasn't as innocuous as he'd been led to believe. Maybe he could use that to his advantage, he thought. Start getting some social reform done around here. Not much that was done in that village made anything remotely close to a lick of sense to him, anyways. Might as well try to liven up the place while he's making things better for the villagers.

“Be that as it may,” he replied, “that still doesn't answer why you wanted us here to begin with. Couldn't whatever you had to say be relayed to us by the chief after you all were done?”

“It could have,” acknowledged the one Wolf who had not yet spoken. “But we wanted to speak to you, personally. Or rather, I did. It has been far too long, after all. I wanted some sort of way to be able to ask you... How have things been?” Before Ahuizotl could even question him as to where this line of conversation was going, he continued: “Must have been sad, watching your entire species die like that. Just dying off, one by one, consumed by a passion for an ancient knowledge so obscure, it was a nigh impossibility for them to ever obtain it.” He smirked. “Makes me glad I got out of there when I did.”

Ahuizotl's jaw dropped. “No... There's no way... But how? What did you do to yourself? You look nothing like you did back then...”

“Magic, my brother,” he said reassuringly, though the tone somewhat confused Ahuizotl. “Magic that is far beyond your comprehension. You see, the arcane arts that the mages and sages of our people tried and failed for so long to find and harness, the magic that drove our people to extinction... I found it. I made it my own. And it has made me stronger than any being on the entire planet! Well, maybe with the exception of the Princesses, but I'm working on that as we speak.”

“But what do you want with me?” Ahuizotl asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time this conversation. “If you and me are the only two people left of our tribe, you can't bring me back to them if there's no one for you to bring me back to. What's your reasoning for reaching out to me now?”

The sly grin that was creeping over the Wolf's face now broke out into a maniacal grin. “Because I know something that you don't. Something that, if you want to be a proper god to this village, you most certainly need to know. Which by the way, congratulations on that. You're the first one from our species to be worshiped as someone's god. You should be proud.”

“Something I don't know? What would that be? And will you tell me?”

He tutted condescendingly at Ahuizotl. “Patience, dear brother. Things like this take time to warm up to. I can't just blow the lid off the barrel yet. There's so much more to discuss first. I will promise you this, though: Soon I will tell you. And when I do, there will be no stopping you from ruling this village like Great Wonder likes to think he does.”

Suddenly he spoke aloud, and the noise almost caused Ahuizotl to visibly flinch. “We are done here, Great Wonder. Thank you for allowing us an audience with your god.” He turned to look Great Wonder in the eyes. “I doubt you'll be seeing us much around here anymore. I think we found what we were looking for this entire time.”

He turned to Lorrie, who had been watching the whole telepathic debate with a perplexed look on her face. As she hadn't yet mastered the art of telepathy, she'd not been able to keep up with their conversation. “Keep your god in line, dear one. We wouldn't want him straying down the wrong path, discovering something he doesn't need to.” They then turned as one and walked out of the hut, shimmering into mist as they left.

“If they can do that, then why did they walk into the village the first time?” Lorrie asked, shaking her head slightly as though trying to clear out mental cobwebs. “Not much about them makes sense...” She turned to say something to Ahuizotl, but paused when she saw the look on his face. “You okay?” she asked.

He nodded absentmindedly. “We'll talk later.” He walked out of the hut, as though in a daze. Lorrie followed closely behind him, obviously concerned about him.

“When will you tell me?” she asked. “When we get back to the hut?”

“I don't know,” he replied. “But I can tell you this.” He turned to face her, and she began to sense that something was deeply troubling him. “Great Wonder is hiding something, and I think we need to find out what, because if we don't... We may not be around for very much longer to investigate.”