Kyriakos Memory Registry

[cihuatlatoani]

Positive Significant:

Giving birth to the twins

Grandmother: The Sun Empress

Sun Magic Initiation

Locked: Induction into Jaguar Knights

Graduation

Joining the military

Meeting Nshikbe

Giving birth to her son

Marrying first husband

Marrying wife

Positive Neutral:

The boy from the bayou

Belated seventeenth birthday party, things get out of hand.

Bard Party

I ate a man (and I liked it)

Winning a sword tournament

Positive Insignificant:

Baby's first sweatbath.

School: Ollama

Afternoon delight with Ohtli

Bedtime stories with Zavi

Morvain knows how to party

Neutral Significant:

First day at school

The Moon Emperor

Defeating the Rebels

Jaguar Trials

Locked: Sad Ghost Sex

Early Childhood Montage:

Investigating the assassination

Marrying Second Husband

Fleeing to the north

Neutral Neutral:

PENIS PERFORATION

Bathtime Assassin

Killer Ghosts

The pregnant slave

I'M TRIPPING BALLS

Nshikbe tries to flirt

Neutral Insignificant:

Buying a slave

The tattooed ambassadors

Negative Significant:

War Crimes

War crimes, aftermath

Resigning from the military

Learning about Grandmother's death and attending the state funeral!

The Worst Day

Discovering who the murderer was

Murdering my second husband

Too many funerals

Negative Neutral:

A fake funeral

Suffering a defeat from rebels

Negative Insignificant:

Breaking a leg in an Ollama game.

Said rude things to cousin, punished by her caretakers. Mother still isn't home.

Spending 12 hours learning a bunch of dances

Punishing the twins

Don't let Montage cook


Skills:

Basic Setting Information

Advanced Setting Information

Firearms/Mani Stone Activation

Melee Weapons lv. 1

Melee Weapons lv. 2

Fashion!

First Aid

Survival

Flute

Magistrate lv. 1

Magistrate lv. 2

Magistrate lv. 3

Tactics

Poetry

Composition

Riding

Eagle Elegance

Jaguar Charisma

Ollama

Lying

Politics

Household Management

Political Backstabbing


Magical Skills:

Beginning Magic: Detecting Pings

Sun Magic: Fires of Dawn

Sun Magic: Eyes of Truth

Sun Magic: All Seeing Sun

Sun Magic: Sword of Twilight

Sun Magic: Solar Warmth

Simple Warding Magic

Comments

Skill 1

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Basic Setting Info
Acquired: Starting Skill

Strap in, this will be a bit long.

The world is called Wakah Chan Na. At its center is a tree that connects Heaven with the Underworld. This tree is Wakah Chan, and is also the god of life and the mother goddess. At each of the cardinal directions is a gigantic mountain with smaller world trees growing from the summit. Most people live on the continents that hang from the branches of those directional trees. The mountains rise from a vast ocean dotted with islands.

Montage lived on the eastern continent, Akesh. She was a noble in the Mihuatec empire, which ruled much of that continent. It's arguably the most powerful country in the world, but has been in a state of decline. There are political problems. The empire especially reveres the sun god Miquna, and the moon god Tzikanti.

Lets briefly talk metaphysics. The gods are omnipotent, but rarely intervene directly. Instead they manifest as avatars. The world is animistic; spirits are around all over the place, though usually invisible unless they want to be seen, or someone uses magic to see them. Everyone has three souls, the blood soul, bone soul, and breath soul.

Worship varies by country. In Montage's country, sacrifice is practiced. Serious prayers entail the offering of blood from the worshipper and incense. More serious rituals involve the sacrifice of animals and people. Ritual bathing and saunas for purification are also a thing. Priests and other magic users use hallucinogens to commune with spiritual forces.

A brief overview of her culture: Loyalty, to people and to causes, is very important. Honesty is as well. They are a cosmopolitan people who value trade and education. They tend to be polite, but not overly rigid. Temperance is a major virtue; excess is limited to very special occasions.

Memory 1

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Early Childhood Montage (Neutral Significant)
Game: Bank Heist, Day 64

A few bits of memory from Montage's early childhood, until about age eight. The memories are slightly hazy, especially the earlier ones.

She doesn't see her mother very often, maybe once every few days. She never sees her father. It was a marriage solely to produce a child, and cement an alliance between two families, after all, and her mother has other husbands. One of them, a kindly priest of the scholar god, Yunbi, helped raise her, and instilled in her an appreciation for literature, religion, and philosophy. His name is Zavi, and he's a foreigner. Otherwise she is raised by servants and tutors.

Her name is Moyolehuani, and she's a member of the house of Quetzalhuitzil. It's a high noble house, and traditionally one of the two co-rulers of the empire, the Sun Empress, is elected from that house. She is the granddaughter of the current empress. She is raised strictly, taught to be careful with her words and not trust too easily. She learns early that political intrigue is dangerous.

She attends religious services and festivals, but is not yet old enough to offer her blood like the nobles and priests do. The festivals are exciting, with lots of food and dancing and music, but sometimes scary. During a new year festival, a young man has his heart torn out by a priest, terrifying her. Her mother tells her that he chose to die, to offer his life to the gods. It is a great honor. Death is also part of life, part of the great cycle of the universe.

She gets along well with some of her cousins and siblings, but doesn't have any real friends her age and is often lonely. She is closest to her mother and Zavi. She particularly enjoys going to the sweat bath with them, a place of healing and closeness.

Memory 2

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Learning about Grandmother's death and attending the state funeral!
Game: Cops and Robbers, Day 67

Montage is a grown woman in this memory, 33 years old. She is working in the imperial capital as the vice-magistrate of the capital region. She doesn't judge cases herself, but oversees investigations of crime and corruption in the capital and nearby provinces; a prestigious position.

While arriving at the palace precinct one morning for work, with one her husbands and her wife (in a fancy carriage drawn by giant flightless birds, natch), royal messengers throughout the city proclaim that her grandmother, the Sun Empress, has passed away that morning. For both her and her husband, their duties were relieved on that day. (Her wife, being an official involved with the coordination of public rituals, however, had much work involving the upcoming funeral.)

This, obviously, is bad on both a personal and political level. She discusses it with her husbands, (named Ohtli and Nahuiyaotl) at home. There had been rumors she was sick, and she was certainly quite old, but nobody had expected her death to come quite so suddenly. Although they had only met a few times and didn't know each other personally, Montage knew that the empress was rather fond of her, and Montage always looked up to her.

They also discus a political conflict that had been brewing for a while. The Empress was a reformer who wanted to introduce more meritocracy into the imperial government and weaken the control noble houses had on the economy in favor of commercial guilds. Many conservative nobles opposed the empress, and supporters of reform, including Montage's aunt and other members of her family. Montage's close family were reformists, and they worry that if conflict erupts, their children could get caught in the crossfire.

After the discussion, Montage goes to check on her children: twin girls by Ohtli, and a boy by Nahuiyaotl. She eats lunch with the children, but doesn't tell them what happened yet.

Four days later, the funeral ceremony takes place. It is a magnificent occasion. Normally, during a funeral, all relatives and close friends of the departed must mourn publicly for four days, taking on a disheveled aspect as they fast and cover themselves with dirt and dust, weeping and wailing. However, since the Empress is the mother of the nation, much of the populace is required to mourn in this way if they can, for at least one day, and four if possible. It is a powerful and cathartic experience.

So for four days you and the other great nobles weep and fast and parade through the streets, hair matted and loose, wailing and singing songs of mourning. The Empress' body is embalmed and wrapped in a bundle, and that bundle is carried in an ornate coffin that you help carry through the streets of the city.

Spirits in many and bizarre shapes materialize throughout the city, the very protector spirits of the Empire revealing themselves to the people and weeping. Ghosts process through the streets by night. The experience is strange and cathartic, like the world itself has become something different in shape.

On the fourth day the Empress' body is burned and the family members, along with those many spirits have a grand ceremony in view of the public. It is long, arcane and tiring, and you give a long and eloquent speech, as do many family members. Ominously, your hated archconservative aunt gives a long speech about restoring order and new beginnings. You fear that the Chamber of Speakers shall elect her the next Empress.

After the ceremony, everybody finally bathes, and feasts, purified from your ritual uncleanness. The spirits and ghosts disappear. The empire returns, cautiously, to its rhythms. But nothing will ever be the same again.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Beginning Magic- Detecting Pings.
Game: Dating Sim, Day 68

Montage has regained the rudiments of magical abilities. This is a sort of "initiation skill." She cannot really do much yet, but she can detect spiritual things.

Basically, she has a keener awareness of her own souls (plural, since people in her world have a blood soul, bone soul, and breath soul), or what's left of them. She is vaguely aware of when magic is used, and if something is a spiritual or magical being, unless they're using magic to hide it. It's a pretty vague sense though.

If she makes a conscious effort and uses her own ~magical energy~ these senses become clearer, and she can detect hidden spirits and magical beings and feel the mystical resonance of everything around her, even if it's not what you would normally consider magical. This has no real effect; it's more like saying that a rock gives off rock energy and the sun radiates sun energy. Her setting, and the magic in it, is sort of animistic.

Using magical power a lot is sort of draining though, and using a lot of magic can result in physical and mental fatigue or even compromise health. Magic energy is regained by meditation and rituals, and more slowly by just resting. Right now it isn't a huge issue since her power is pretty minor. It's worth noticing that using certain mind altering substances can strengthen one's magical energy and make your supernatural senses stronger while they're in effect.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Belated seventeenth birthday party, things get out of hand. (Neutral Positive)
Gained: Day 70, plot.

Montage and her friends have just been released from their studies at the Academy for a couple weeks vacation. Before going home to their respective families, her friends decide to have a little party for her sixteenth birthday, during which she and everybody else had been studying hard for examinations. One gets the impression are quite formidable, because Montage actually has a few bruises in this memory, and they talk about how tough the martial arts test was.

Montage seems to like her friends a good bit, but she seems especially close to a boy named Ohtli, who she seems to be dating. At any rate there is a lot of embarrassing flirting between them.

Anyway, the group of them go to see a play, a foreign comedy involving zombies and slapstick, then they dine at a ridiculously fancy restaurant because most of them are aristocrats. Of note, Montage is a lot more lively and less serious when out partying with her friends. After dinner, they buy and chew some tobacco as they walk back to the academy dormitories.

Back there, Ohtli takes her to her dorm room, but she insists he come in. Things become nsfw. Afterwards, they are embarrassed about it, but Montage reassures him that they will get married anyway, so its okay. But they promise not to do things like that until then. Being young and hormonal though, they realize that now they're both old enough to go to the brothel, so they sneak out, and more nsfw ensues when they decide to practice on other people. Bizarrely in her culture, this is apparently romantic.

Eventually they sneak back to the dormitories.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: I Ate A Man (And I Liked It)

Summary: Moyolehuani, now an adult in her late 20s, is attending a religious festival in the city. As she recently obtained a high position in the Imperial House of Justice, she gets to take part in some of the ceremonies!

She dances in a circle with other nobles and priests, it's pretty cool. The two co-monarchs of the empire are attending in person! At one point she bows before them and recites a fancy speech with a bunch of other people. She also eats popcorn, sips chocolate, and doesn't actually get to enjoy herself much because it's a formal occasion, but the pride of being there is quite a rush.

At any rate, at noon, a man is brought out dressed in the regalia of a God, and Moyolehuani's spiritual senses go wild. Spirits start to appear in the midst of the festival, watching the proceedings, as the man is brought to the top of a pyramid, and then killed by having his heart torn out.

Later there is a feast in the Imperial palace, attended by the two monarchs, some other nobles and priests, those spirits from before, and Moyolehuani. And what's on the menu? The guy that was sacrificed.

She considers it a sacred event. This man offered his life and his flesh to the gods and the spirits and the empire, and she has been given the privilege of making his essence a part of her.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Melee Weapons lv. 1

Summary: Decent proficiency in a variety of melee weapons, as she would have learned in her academy training. These include sword, spear, polearm, knives, and shield, with both attack and defense. There is also some unarmed training, but at a lower level. Because this is a "broad" skill, she's not quite as talented as someone with, for example, a "sword" skill, but she's good enough in a scrap.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Killer Ghosts

Moyolehuani is twenty now, an officer in the army. She is stationed in a remote province, neighboring unfriendly nations, at a fort near the border.

Moyolehuani sits astride her riding bird, sword at her side, spear in her hand, shield on her arm. She looks crisp and stern in her steel armor, hair tied back in a bun. There is the design of an eagle on her breastplate, and she wears an eage shaped helmet. A paper banner tied to her back with the emblem of a sun and a hummingbird.

She's leading a small force against a group of angry ghosts rampaging around some ways away, which has been terrorizing the local herders and villagers. Only a few dozen soldiers, heading out on riding birds, but all have some magical training. Ghosts are tricky to deal with after all. It's a lucky thing there was a necromancer at the fort.

The battle goes well. Scouts with movement enchancing magics had already found their positions and done some skirmishing, goading the spirits out of the deserted farmstead they were holed up in. Moyolehuani and the other sun mages are easily able to spot them from a distance with their sight spells.

The ghosts have taken physical forms, so they have rendered themselves susceptible to attacks by spear and arquebus, but magic flies as well. Moyolehuani shoots a beam of brilliant golden fire before charging into the fray herself. By the battle's end she has defeated three of the fiendish spirits herself.

After the necromancer performs a ceremony of exorcism, the troops ride back to the fort in good spirits, but they bring with them the bodies of four of their own who fell in battle. Moyolehuani is proud, but she cannot help but wrack her brain about how she as a commander could have avoided their deaths.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Firearms/Mani Stone Activation

You may be wondering why this is one skill when it seems to be two. It may be accurate to say that they are two highly linked skills.

Mani stones are magical stones in Montage's world that have a specific effect when activated with a spell. This spell is extremely easy to learn, so basically anybody in the world that wants to learn it can. In Montage's world there are guns, roughly at the level of advancement of the 16th or 17th centuries. Rather than using gunpowder, bullets are propelled by a type of Mani stone called "Gale Stones" which generate explosive kinetic force. Basically, soldiers fire guns by casting the Mani stone activation spell.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Flute

She can play a flute. This extends to general knowledge of flutes too. She can make very simple flutes out of bamboo, for example.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Marrying First Husband
Regained: Day 100, Dream Traveller's game

You are 19, are only one year out of school, and one year into your military career, but you are getting married. You are getting married to a man that many in your family hate, for he is the mere son of a merchant, and not of high birth (though he does belong to a reasonably successful family of patrician merchants), but you do not care, because Ohtli is your oldest friend, and you have loved him for many years. Your mother is fond of him too, and also fond of his economic connections, and thus the wedding was arranged and allowed. So let Aunt Yaretzi hate him, let Uncle Yayauhxoch hate him, and let your cousins hate him too, for you love him, and your mother approves.

There are four days of feasting and celebration before the ceremony itself. There is song and dance and orations from the finest poets in the realm. There are dances. You both dance every day until you are tired and then for even longer. There is roast Bear Turkey and plump dogs for eating.

And the ceremony is so very grand. Your mother and uncle speak, and you and Ohtli exchange vows of devotion, and wear newly spun capes that are tied together with a knot.

Throughout, your conservative relatives seethe. For a member of the Quetzalhuitzil clan to marry a merchant's son! Looking more conflicted is your personal aide, a spirited young woman named Nshikbe, who you know to be passionately in love with you, and quite jealous. You do not return her affections (yet. There is also a memory where you marry her). You do not care. You are only consumed in joy for this moment.

And when the long day is done, you bring your new husband to your quarters, and have loud joyous sex with him through the night.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Giving birth to the twins

okay maybe I'll go into more detail later but their names are Tlahui (TLA-wee) and Ixtli (EESH-tli)

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: The Worst Day

(Timeline note: 4 years ago)

Moyolehuani is staying outside the city one night at her mother's estate for the observance of a religious festival coinciding with a solar eclipse. Several members of the reform faction of the Quetzalhuitzil family and their allies are attending; her mother is basically the leader of that faction. The going has been tough for them due to the accession of Moyolehuani's reactionary aunt Yaretzi to the Sun Throne.

The great feast is well guarded, but apparently Empress Yaretzi wanted to take advantage of the situation anyway, because the feast is attacked by spirits of the storm and underworld, and by giants that slept on the surface of the moon; all summoned with a purpose.

In the attack on the feast, several members of Montage's family are killed, including her mother, her first husband, and one of her twin daughters (Ixtli). She is injured herself defending her children, being struck by lightning by a storm demon. But she takes the lead in rescuing the survivors and fighting off the terrible creatures, and survives. The same cannot be said for many who she loved.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Giving birth to son

Details will come later, but his name is Balam

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Afternoon Delight with Ohtli
Regained: Day 114

It's a day off of work for a winter solstice festival, and you are in a rather restless mood. The servants are taking care of the children, and your wife is busy with the festival and your second husband lives in a different city, so you decide to have a little date with Ohtli, your first love.

You watch as the festival is getting set up in the morning, have something to eat, play some songs with him, beat him in a sword fight, then screw him silly for the rest of the morning. It's a good thing that the walls are pretty thick. Life is good.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: I'M TRIPPING BALLS

You are young in the memory, just barely adolescent. Today is an important day, an important step in your magical studies at the academy, because you are going to receive visions for the first time, and interact with cosmic forces an a level you are entirely unfamiliar with.

You descend with a couple teachers, whose names are blurred out, alone into a cave with only torches to light your path. You remember that one of the teachers is exceedingly harsh, a small woman with steely eyes, and the other is an eccentric young lady that you are fond of, but who is somewhat scatterbrained.

As you go deeper, it already feels like you are descending into a strange and foreign world. When you reach a wide cavern, gleaming with beautiful crystals, the torches are suddenly extinguished, and you are forcibly sat down on the ground. You are told to meditate in the usual way, but with your eyes open.

In the complete darkness and silence, you can barely even hear your teachers breathing. After some minutes, you can hear voices, and see bright geometric shapes flashing in front of you: vague visions of heaven and the underworld, of the spirits all around you, that's what you know.

After a few more minutes, you are given a cup of chocolate. It tastes strange and acrid. You know that is because of the crushed mushrooms that were added to it. Psilocybin.

It does not take long for them take effect. Amplified by the dark and the silence, you spend the next several hours experiencing something incredible. You can sense the spirits in the cave, radiant crystalline creatures singing lovely songs to you. Your soul soars to highest heavens and descends to the roots of the cosmos.

You can feel Truth, and Beauty, and your souls burn brighter than ever before. Your bones are seeds. Your breath is a cloud. Your blood is sunlight. You speak to the earth and the sun. The whole memory at this point is blurry and indistinct, and even somewhat uncomfortable, but blissful, ecstatic.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Eagle Elegance

This skill is a package of related high society skills Montage knows; formal etiquette, dances, and how to dress in various situations.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Jaguar Charisma

This skill makes Montage eloquent, persuasive, and just plain socially magnetic.

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Fashion!

Montage receives the fashion sense and cosmetic skills of an elegant high class Mihuatec lady!

[cihuatlatoani]

Skill: Ollama

You can play Ollama, a thinly veiled version of the Mesoamerican ball game! The sport of kings! Five pound rubber balls! Painful bruises everywhere!

[cihuatlatoani]

Memories: Baby's First Sweatbath

In this memory you are only four. Your memory is very hazy and dreamy and tinged with strong emotional impressions.

Uncle Zavi (Actually one of your mothers husbands, who raised you like a father) is taking you to have a sweat bath, or Temazcal, for the first time. The two of you enter one of the many Temazcaltin on the palace grounds. They're all very small buildings, made of baked bricks. They're elegant, though, and decorated in many holy symbols.

The two of you remove most of your clothes before entering. Zavi removes all of his jewelry and other adornments. The Temazcal is not just about hygiene. It is a form of medicine, physical and spiritual. It is a religious ceremony, too. Zavi explains all of this to you as you prepare to enter.

Inside it is cramped and dark, lit only by the central hearth. Three volcanic stones are set in the fire. Those stones represent the three souls humans have, and the three levels of the universe. It is very hot, and humid, and soon you are both sweating. The scent of incense and aromatic woods waft everywhere.

Zavi explains the significance a little more, even though it is hard to make out all the details. The house represents the inside of the earth, the fire is the sun, the darkness is the night. There are so many sacred things, and you listen intently, even though you barely remember it now. But you can remember the beautiful hymns that he sang.

It is so hot, but it feels good. You feel cleansed, and almost ecstatic to be in this holy place. And you are happy to share this happy moment with Uncle Zavi, who you love very dearly.

Afterwards, the servants give you a cold bath, and you are led off to bed, sleeping peacefully.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Sun Magic Initiation

This is another school memory.

The last few nights, you have been having many vivid dreams about fire and wisdom and the sky and most of all the sun. You have heard strange and beautiful songs in words you do not understand. You know that this means that you are ready to be attuned to the Path of Sun Magic. You notify your teachers in the morning.

Cut to you in an underground room with the two teachers from the magic mushrooms memory. You are ready now. You are ready. You had fasted all day, purified yourself in the Temazcal, and meditated for hours.

Now it shall begin. You inhale the smoke of the herbs the teachers burn. These are not the herbs that normally grant visions, but being. burned in the ratio they are being burned now, they facilitate the attunement process. Your body, already hot and parched, enters a fever. It feels like your entire body is consumed with fire.

It feels like you are fire, floating in the midst of hotter fire. It burns, and it's so terribly painful, and yet you endure, and there is almost a serenity in that terrible heat. You focus on that tranquility.

And then the room dissapears. You see light, and an endless blue sky. You are floating in that sky. You are fire in that sky. But you are so much smaller than the great fire in front of you. That endless blaze is Miquna. The goddess who is the sun, and fire, and wisdom. She is justice and glory and power.

And she reaches out and touches you with a hand that is not a hand, because it is a pillar of fire, and you burn, but it is a burn that purifies you and makes you whole, and makes you more than what you were. You feel something you cannot describe. It is joy and reverence, but something more. It is peaceful, but there is a feeling of heat and motion. If Sun is a feeling, you are feeling it.

When you awaken there is a fire burning inside you. You are now a Sun Mage. The two teachers smile proudly down at you.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: School- Ollama

This memory is from when Montage is an early teen. Today, you are playing a game of Ollama! It's basically the Mesoamerican ballgame. You had decided to try out for the school's Ollama society earlier that year, and you managed to get in. (You quit by the end of the year, but you don't know that yet.) The school doesn't really have teams, it rather has a society that forms into smaller teams for games. In practice though, there are cliques that tend to form the same teams. Your cousin Ch'okole is on your team this team. Gods how you hate that girl. In fact there's another member of your family on this team, but you don't know him quite as well. From a further off branch, you believe, nephew to a provincial governor. At any rate, they insist family has to be on the same team.

The sun shines bright on the ballcourt, a lovely stone arena with seats to both sides of the playing area. The walls have vivid murals depicting the game, as well as jaguars and wolves eating people's hearts, and people getting beheaded. Lovely stuff. Your friends are cheering you on from the stands, Ayakiri, Munyal, and Ohtli.

You lose though. You and your cousin just can't follow the same plan. She blames you, and maybe it is your fault. But also she's just a shitty person who sucks.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Buying a slave

It's just a normal day and you are out in a bustling market in the capital city with your mother. You're both attended by armed servants to guard you, and keep an eye on possible threats. That's what nobles of your caliber do when they're out, much of the time.

You have a short conversation with her as you walk. You recently got a promotion to vice-magistrate of the region, and you're moving from your mother's mansion to a smaller mansion near the office of justice. (It sure is nice to be rich!) That's why you're buying a new slave to help you move, and manage affairs around the house.

You soon reach the slave market, composed of innumerable pavilions under which many humans and other races sit or stand, all restrained in some fashion. Entertainers lounge on plush cushions, burly laborers stand sullenly with their hands bound. Scribes sit reading books, rather conspicuously. The enormous antlered Gogan people sit in sections of their own, as they command a high price. There are even a few insectile Thraags, being sold mostly ship crew or musicians. Many of them, particularly the non-humans, were likely captured illegally, or are under exploitative contracts. You disapprove of such things.

Hawkers call out names, descriptions, prices, and so on. But you are here to pick up and pay for a purchase you arranged ahead of time. You come to the vendor, and standing beside him is your new man; a small slender man named Axolotl (certainly a nickname) whom you are buying as a secretary. He's from middle class background, and sold himself to pay back debts from failed businesses, for a term of two years. You converse with him shortly, verifying his story. He seems trustworthy enough; those in debt usually are, as they wish to escape as quickly as possible.

You write a check in the presence of the merchant and a market judge, and receive Axolotl's contract. Both of you sign it. And you return home, the owner of a human being.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: The Tattooed Ambassadors

This memory has Montage in her mid to late twenties.

So here you are at a relatively modest building in the government district of the capital, with your wife and a couple servants from your house. This is not a normal building, this is an embassy from a nation very far away. That much should be obvious by the very different architectural style compared to the buildings around it: it looks like a European Gothic manor. Even in a city as eclectic and cosmopolitan in Mihua, it looks a little weird.

You are here to meet ambassadors from a far away land. Not to negotiate government stuff, just to stay on good terms. This isn't even an official occasion, just a fancy lunch. Still, you need to be careful, and tightlipped. All of those around you know that too. You are dealing with foreign officials, after all.

The people that come to greet you are pretty strange looking as well. Their skin is pale, like many on their continent, and they have swirling blue tattoos over much of their bodies. The ambassador is a red haired woman of about 40, flanked by a burly male guard, and a woman about your age with icy blue eyes. There are a couple servants near by. They all wear fine trousers and shirts, and have braids in their hair. The man has a thick beard.

The ambassador greets you, introducing herself as Katrina per Morvain, as well as the man and woman beside her (Owen and Maire respectively.) Katrina is a Druid, one of the priestly caste of Morvain, and a member of the royal family. Owen is a bodyguard from the warrior caste, and Maire is a bard and personal attendant. You are escorted to a dining room, where you meet her husband, a thin, easygoing man named Alistair.

You all sit down in high backed chairs at a round table, so different from the local dining customs. In a nod to the location though, there are hot corn tortillas for all of the guests. The food is rich and sumptuous, and served with dark spicy beer. You all (except the servants, and Owen the guard) make rather formal small talk, asking questions about each others countries and so on. Everyone is on guard while trying to look relaxed.

Maire, the bard, is blatantly flirting with you though, and offers to compose a poem to your beauty. You politely decline. Your wife is somehow amused and jealous at the same time. However, the bard does sing a couple of songs for those assembled before you leave.

You remember that their society is a bit different than yours. They have a complicated caste system, the Druids practically run the country, and everybody has those same tattoos. Their temples are just massive standing stones and sacred groves. They have a reputation for being party animals. You find them rather interesting. You remember that decades ago, your empire used to rule part of one of the neighboring kingdoms, which has a similar culture.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Don't let Montage cook

It's summer in the city of Mihua, you do not have work today, and several of the servants are sick. But the kids, who are still young at this point, are hungry, and sooner or later Ohtli and Nshikbe will be home, so you need to do something about food.

Sure, you could probably get one of the servants that don't normally cook, or have one of the city's restaurants or taverns deliver to your house in the family compound, but surely cooking can not be so difficult? Most women of humble means in the empire do it, and many men as well. You're a smart woman, you can surely prepare a meal for your family. Even though you have never done much more than boil water or cook beans.

You try to make dough for tortillas and tamales early in the day. You scrape the kernels off the cobs, and grind them on the rough stone metate just outside the kitchen. A passing servant hurries over, asking what you're doing, seeing as there is a wet corn mush all over the grinding stone. You look flustered. You're obviously doing it wrong.

The servant informs you that there ought to be some fresh tortillas in the familly larder, in the main house, but you refuse her offer to get them. The family cannot know her shame! So she offers to grind tortillas for you, to which you reluctantly assent. She's a nice young servant named Xahui who gets pregnant and let go in a different memory, but that's neither here nor there.

Well, you can at least make a sauce, right? So you try to do that in the kitchen. Chili peppers, maize flour, bear turkey grease, and a bit of chocolate and cinnamon, pretty easy, right? Except the fire isn't hot enough. So you charge the sun stone in the oven with your magic to turn up the heat, as is perfectly normal in this crazy magic world, and now the sauce is burning.

A similar comedy of errors results when she tries to make a pork roast (actually made from a sort of domesticated tapir), and burns the shit out of it. Eventually the kids start complaining about the charred smell, you hear one of the poor sick servants getting out of bed to try to help you, and you end up having to get Xahui to make everything for you.

Except the beans. You managed to make the beans.

Anyway, later you manage to laugh over dinner with it about your family, and you even invite Xahui and the sick servants to the table, though maybe your servants teasing you about it irritates you a little. At least it tastes good.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: The Boy from the Bayou

This memory introduces one of Montage's class mates from her school days, a noble boy from the swamp provinces to north named Koowezkoowe. Those swamp folk sure are different from the natives of this region, but they've been part of the empire for a long time and they're generally respected, if considered slightly unrefined and provincial. (SUPER SPECIAL OOC NOTE: they're based on the native peoples of the American Southeast, like the Cherokee, Choctaws, Muscogee, etc. With some elements of post-colonial American southern cultures, mostly in the food.)

In this memory you and you school friends are roughly 8 to 10, that being the age group that has classes together. The bayou boy introduces himself to the class politely, and approaches you and your friends once the class is over.

"It's nice to meet y'all."

Swamp people sure speak strangely. But once classes are over he eats with you, and talks about the food they eat back home, like frog legs and "mudbugs" and he seems cool enough.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: PENIS PERFORATION

Today your husband Ohtli needs to shove a sharp object through his penis and you need to help him.

Every Mihuatec man of good breeding does it at least once. It's considered part of process for men undertaking a religious fast, a ritual that one undertakes to show piety and bring blessings upon the family.

This is about a month after the wedding, and he still hasn't formally joined your family. He doesn't need to, but it does make the whole living at your house thing a lot easier. And to show his devotion to your family, he's fasting.

You're still on leave from the military, so you're there to support him, bring him plain tortillas for dinner and water to drink. It's been three days. On the dawn of the forth day, he needs to undertake that most terrible of ordeals.

Ohtli's scared shitless.

You're in the room encouraging him, as a priest holds a long sharp manta ray spine, holds your husbands genitals in his rough, elderly hands, and your husband desperately tries to look brave.

It's over pretty quickly, but the moans of pain aren't. Nor is the time that he has to wear bandages and hobble around.

But you have learned what true love is. True love is having to disinfect your husband's penis puncture wound every night.

[cihuatlatoani]

Memory: Said rude things to cousin, punished by her caretakers. Mother still isn't home.

Montage is only six years old in this memory, and this is a day in her life as she grows up in her mother's mansion. Her mother has been gone for the last three months, staying in some city in a far off province on some official business, and she has been quite lonely.

After being awoken early by family retainers, she is taken to bathe, offer morning prayers, and eat breakfast. Then it is hours of tutoring in music, history, and languages, and a brief break for lunch. Watched over by the servants, you eat outside in the courtyard of the family palace compound with siblings and cousins.

One of those cousins of Ch'okole, Aunt Yaretzi's daughter. Older than you, Ch'okole has always been cold, mean, and passive aggressive towards you, perhaps because your mothers do not like each other either. Ever since your mother left, she has gotten even meaner and cattier, making comments about your side of the family were you can hear them, patronizing your intelligence, and trying to get you in trouble with your caretakers. You're sick of it. So when she makes some backhanded comment about you having poor posture, you sweetly ask her if her episode of foot fungus has cleared up yet.

It's on now. She glares at you, shaking with anger, and out pours a stream of invective, which you return. You're six and she's nine. Eventually your older cousins separate you. You were supposed to have exercise after this, but you are brought away by some aunt whose name you don't even know, a minor branch family member at rate, to be punished. You really got into it this time.

Mihuatecs punish their children pretty harshly sometimes, at least the aristocrats do. You are poked with thorns, have salt rubbed into the cuts, and have chili powder rubbed into your nostrils. It's agony, and terrifying, especially for such a young child. Afterwards, you are bandaged, taken to your afternoon lessons, and made to sit in a dark room for a couple hours and go without dinner. You cry alone, still infuriated by your cousin and the aunt that punished you and your cuts still burning. You miss your mother so much.

But before bed, one of your other cousins, a good one that you like comes by to comfort you. Xiuhtlahui, a smart and vivacious teenager. She brings you a little food and water, and tells you happily about what's going on in her own life, about friends at school, about crushes, a play she saw, and she gossips about members of the family that neither of you like. After she leaves, you say evening prayers, and you are put down to bed, you feel a little better. But you still miss your mother.